


London Calling

by forthegreatergood



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cold War, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gift Giving, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Wing Grooming, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: The Cold War is ending, and Crowley can’t help but love an angel.Aziraphale hummed happily to himself and bustled about, getting out an appropriate tea service and putting a plate of scones on the table.  Crowley helped himself to one, nibbling at it while he watched Aziraphale work.He could almost see the angel’s halo when he was like this, lost in some pleasant task and content in his labor.  So much less fraught, going through rituals like these with no one to see and judge and reprimand if anything wasn’t done to someone else’s standards.  The only witness was Crowley, and Aziraphale had made it clear some time ago that if Crowley had a complaint about how Aziraphale made his tea, he was quite at liberty to go home and make his own.  No, this was something Aziraphale was doing for himself, because he found it soothing and pleasurable and good, and Aziraphale was practically glowing with it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 83
Kudos: 335
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All characters property of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and the respective production and licensing companies.
> 
> Thank you to [foxyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk/pseuds/foxyk) for betaing!

Crowley slunk into the bookshop, a box of tea and the morning’s newspaper tucked under one arm, and waited for the inevitable spike of extremely unangelic pique in response to the bell.

“I’m very sorry,” said an angel who didn’t sound it in the least, “but we close in five minutes, and I’m quite sure that won’t be enough time to find what you need.”

Aziraphale’s pinched face appeared from around a bookshelf, followed shortly by the rest of him, and he seemed torn between relief that it wasn’t a customer and irritation that Crowley had let him think it might be once he registered who’d rung the bell.

“You might have called first,” he tutted. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Brought you something, angel,” Crowley said, barely able to restrain his glee at Aziraphale’s mood. There was something about Aziraphale being mildly irritated with an inconvenience for his own sake, and over a petty annoyance that had nothing whatsoever to do with Crowley being a demon, that Crowley couldn’t help but find utterly charming.

Aziraphale gave him a suspicious look, then snapped his fingers. Behind him, Crowley heard the door locking and the sign flipping itself to declare the shop closed for the day, and Aziraphale gestured in the direction of the back room.

“After you,” he said shortly.

“Don’t be like that,” Crowley laughed, shifting the paper to his other hand and presenting Aziraphale with the box. “This make it any better, then?”

“Oh, yes, what won’t another box of tea smooth over?” Aziraphale asked. “Maybe you should try sending a batch to that American you poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Crowley echoed, doing his best to sound scandalized. He tossed the newspaper down and gestured to the headline. “Nothing doing--it was bad sushi, that’s all. Hardly my fault in the least, presidents going around cramming fish in their gobs even after it’s gone off.”

“Crowley, you had him throwing up in the Japanese prime minister’s lap.” Aziraphale’s pretty face wrinkled in disgust, and Crowley winced. That had been a tad much, granted, but he’d only made the man sick enough to ruin a state dinner, not create an international incident.

“Bad sushi, bad aim,” Crowley said with a shrug. “Not like I gave him a shove into poor old Miyazawa’s unwelcoming arms, now, is it?”

“You might as well have.” He sneaked a sidelong glance at Crowley, his shoulders softening slightly. “You really didn’t intend it?”

“Humans, angel.” He spread his hands. “Give them a nudge, they run a marathon. Besides, it’s hardly my fault a newsdesk tried to jump the gun and declare the bastard _dead_ , now is it?”

“Lord, give me strength,” Aziraphale muttered, and Crowley kept his expression serious. That was usually the death knell for the angel’s protests and chiding, unless Crowley had found a way to really shock him, but it relied on Crowley not setting him off again by flaunting the fact that he wasn’t the least bit sorry. Aziraphale shook his head and grumbled a few other mild imprecations to himself, then huffed when Crowley managed to look contrite. “All right, I suppose you probably didn’t mean it as much as _all_ that.”

Aziraphale finally really looked at the box in his hands, mollified enough to begin accepting the gift. He paused as the characters stamped into the side of the box tugged at the thread of some memory, and Crowley folded himself into his customary chair and drank in the spectacle. 

Aziraphale’s brows furrowed, just a little quirk at first, then the line slightly offset to the right between them deepened. His lips pulled together into that brilliant cupid’s bow, and those lovely blue eyes sharpened as he thought. It was always so wonderful, watching Aziraphale think. It was a shame that most times Crowley got to see it, Aziraphale was thinking about what angle Crowley was working or whether or not he should say yes to whatever Crowley had just proposed. The night in Timgad when they’d gotten properly soused and Crowley had gotten to watch Aziraphale puzzle over riddles with the local wags for hours had been the most fun he’d had that whole decade.

“Is this really…?” Aziraphale turned the box over in his hands.

“Wuyi oolong, yeah,” Crowley said, pleased with himself. Maybe a bit too pleased. Aziraphale glanced up at him and flushed, and then that beautiful symphony of thinking was gone, replaced by the sort of brusque, all-business look the angel usually reserved for telling customers they weren’t going to get what they wanted. Crowley leaned forward, letting his elbows touch the cushion between his splayed knees, and braced his chin on his interwoven fingers. “Off the same bushes you liked so well the last time we were in the area.”

“That can’t be right,” Aziraphale scolded. He opened the box and inhaled, though, and there was that same blissful look Crowley’d seen the last time Aziraphale had had the tea in question. Crowley tried to bludgeon his nascent grin into something more acceptable and called it a day when it came out a smirk.

“Can’t it, then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Aziraphale gave him a warning look, then relaxed again when he ran his fingertips through the tea leaves. “How?”

“Sticks in people’s minds when somebody likes their tea so well it cures two cases of consumption and one case of blindness.” Crowley had also taken very careful note of the place and what it was Aziraphale’d been drinking, at the time. 

He’d gotten rather good at this game, over the centuries. World champion, seven hundred years running. It made sense, he supposed, since he’d made the game up and he was the score-keeper and, so far as he could tell, the only one who was ever likely to play it. But at the same time, Please the Angel could be a murderously complicated pastime, and it always, _always_ required a phenomenal amount of long-term planning and no small amount of strategy.

Aziraphale hummed happily to himself and bustled about, getting out an appropriate tea service and putting a plate of scones on the table. Crowley helped himself to one, nibbling at it while he watched Aziraphale work. 

He could almost see the angel’s halo when he was like this, lost in some pleasant task and content in his labor. So much less fraught, going through rituals like these with no one to see and judge and reprimand if anything wasn’t done to someone else’s standards. The only witness was Crowley, and Aziraphale had made it clear some time ago that if Crowley had a complaint about how Aziraphale made his tea, he was quite at liberty to go home and make his own. No, this was something Aziraphale was doing for himself, because he found it soothing and pleasurable and good, and Aziraphale was practically glowing with it.

Crowley watched him at it and tried to hide the answering smile that wanted to bloom across his own face. Aziraphale glanced back at the wrong time and caught him staring, and a worried frown flitted across his lips.

“You look like the cat that’s got the cream,” he said, hands going to the edge of his waistcoat.

“Scone, angel.” Crowley held up the remaining half of the pastry. “I’m the snake that’s got the scone.”

The frown returned, longer and deeper this time. He sighed. “I suppose I should have asked what this was going to cost me before I accepted it.”

“Cost?” Crowley asked, giving Aziraphale an exaggerated look of wounded betrayal. “Angel, it’s a gift. Only a right scoundrel would give someone a present and then turn around and ask for something in return.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, and Crowley put his hand over his heart.

“You wound me,” he said, slumping back in the chair and waving the scone about. “When have I ever done anything to merit this sort of suspicion? This baseless, dishonorable--”

“Well, if you really _don’t_ want anything in return, then I’m sure I’m sorry for insulting you, when you’ve been so generous,” Aziraphale said quickly, holding up his hands.

“Apology accepted,” Crowley said. He took out a handkerchief and blotted at his eyes behind the sunglasses, then did a passable impression of blowing his nose. “Though if I discorporate from the pain of it, could you just have them carve ‘unjustly accused by a principality’ on my tombstone?”

Crowley took another bite of the scone, all pretense of emotional distress gone, and Aziraphale glared at him.

“I don’t know why I bother,” Aziraphale sighed, turning back to his tea.

“Though, now that you mention it…”

“Naturally.” Aziraphale shot him a tetchy look.

Crowley finally set the grin he’d been trying to hide free. “I have to report in soon. I don’t suppose you could give my wings a quick spit-shine for me, make sure everything’s in order and impressive? I mean, so long as I’m here.”

Aziraphale made a face like he’d just bitten into a scone and found an unincorporated ball of baking powder.

“Really, now.” He shook his head and began pouring the tea.

“Well, I guess if you’ve got something else on, I could probably figure it out,” Crowley said, shrugging. It stung a little bit--it did--when the angel acted so put out at the thought of it, but it never took too much wheedling before he came around. And it was worth a bit of a sting, once the angel’s fingers were in his feathers. Aziraphale was a miracle-worker when it came to grooming, and Crowley would have gone through a lot more than a few thoughtless looks of distaste if it meant he got his wings seen to by someone who knew what he was doing. “There’s gotta be at least one demon who needs a favor more than they want to stab me in the back.”

“Oh, for…” Aziraphale huffed and set his teacup down in front of him with unnecessary force. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you could just ask, you know. You don’t have to burst in here with gifts and then pretend there’s no ulterior motive.”

Crowley wanted to laugh at that, at the thought of how much more wheedling it would take if Aziraphale wasn’t already in a good mood over some little present and willing to be generous to the person who’d brought it to him. He could feel his grin going brittle at the thought, though, and so he stopped thinking it. No sense spoiling it, was there?

“I found you something, and coincidentally it would be nice if I knew my wings weren’t going to look a mess in front of the bosses. Unrelated events, angel,” Crowley assured him, finished the scone. He miracled the crumbs away, and Aziraphale settled into the chair opposite with his own tea. That he got a front-row seat to the show that was Aziraphale enjoying himself was half the point, anyway.

Aziraphale looked at him over the rim of the cup, huffed quietly to himself, and then focused on the tea and only the tea. Crowley watched all that good humor come trickling back as Aziraphale inhaled the aroma and let the warmth bleed into his hands from the porcelain. It was a little like seeing a vampire draining the life out of something, the way Aziraphale hunted down and lingered over every last bit of physical pleasure to be derived from some favorite experience.

When Aziraphale finally took a sip of it, he closed his eyes and sighed, that small contented noise that made Crowley’s week-long detour through China on his way to Tokyo worth every last bit of delay and inconvenience.

“You know,” Aziraphale said softly, when he came back to himself, “I’d almost forgotten quite how good this tea really was?”

“It has been a while,” Crowley said, shrugging. It had been a while, and the angel was fond of everything that produced his little bursts of bliss. There was always something new on the horizon, some new invention or discovery that humans had made, some new revival of an old pleasure. Aziraphale never held too tightly to those fleeting things; he knew how briefly he was likely to have them. It was harder to forget seeing it on his face, to forget the thing that had made him light up like that and sigh like this and go soft as a day-old chick tucked safe in a warm nest under its mother.

Aziraphale took another sip, and his eyes fluttered shut again. Crowley drank his tea in silence and basked in that reflected happiness. It was good tea; he liked it well enough. It simply wasn’t the same rapturous, orgasmic experience for him that the angel was clearly having. 

Crowley let his head rest on the chair’s wing and watched, wondering what it would be like to cup the angel’s face in his hands and hear that same soft sigh of pleasure, feel that same pause as Aziraphale savored the warmth of Crowley’s skin against the his flesh. Better to stop thinking about that, too, before he spoiled more than this one moment.

Aziraphale was beautiful, and Aziraphale was happy, and Aziraphale had agreed to see to his wings. That was enough--more than enough.

Even taking as long over it as he did, Aziraphale eventually had to finish his cup, and Crowley tried not to look too eager as the dishes were cleaned and put away and the pot was set aside for later. He probably only half succeeded, if Aziraphale’s long-suffering look was anything to go by.

“All right, then.” He changed the little table kittycorner to their armchairs for a small kitchen chair set directly between them, and Crowley tried to ignore the air of getting it over with that settled over Aziraphale’s shoulders and face. 

The angel was just being overdramatic, as usual. Crowley never went more than a week without grooming his wings himself, and he’d never asked Aziraphale to do it for him without having done a particularly thorough job of it the day before, just in case. The last thing Crowley intended was to really put the angel out or make him fix anything. It was just… _satisfying_ to have someone else seeing to them, pleasant in a way that was missing when he did it himself. There was that extra bit of bravado when he felt like the two of them were really hand in glove, that shot in the arm to his confidence that nothing was wrong and none of his superiors could find much to fault in his reported performance. 

Plus there were quite simply a few spots that Crowley could just barely reach and definitely couldn’t see--at least not without making some inadvisable and frankly horrific alterations to his corporation--and it was always nice to know he wasn’t going to show up for his regularly-scheduled bluff session with Dagon looking like an ass.

Crowley stretched his shoulders and his back, then settled onto the chair’s seat, knees hanging off the back with the thin slats jammed between them and arms crossed easily over the top of it. He rested his chin on his crossed forearms and manifested his wings with a sigh. It always felt so damn good, letting them unfurl. Even after only a few days tucked away, they got stiff and needed a good stretch. There were a great many wonderful things about modern architecture--running water, sewer service, central heating--but good luck navigating any of it wings-out.

“Really.” Aziraphale clicked his tongue.

“Oh, come on, they can’t be _that_ bad,” Crowley protested. “You did a thorough job of it last time, and it’s not like I’ve been using them to dust the top shelves or something.”

“They’re in fine shape,” Aziraphale told him, as if that was in and of itself somehow a cause for irritation. Crowley flexed them slightly, brushing his secondary coverts against Aziraphale’s hands. That little shock of warmth ran down his spine, and he wanted to shiver with it. “I hardly think you need me doing anything at all.”

Crowley bit back a hiss of frustration. It wouldn’t do to let Aziraphale see how badly he wanted it, and besides, he knew the script by heart. He’d say something about judging a book by its cover, or better safe than sorry, and then Aziraphale would tut a bit more and act as if he was being imposed on in some absurdly grand way, and then Crowley would point out that if there was so little to do, it couldn’t be such a hardship to just do it. Aziraphale would make a show of giving in, and get started, and promptly lose himself for the better part of an hour fussing over all the little faults and flaws to be put right in Crowley’s supposedly perfectly-groomed wings. The first time Crowley had talked him into it, he’d even wound up with the same look on his face that he got when he was restoring an old book, and Crowley had worried he might discorporate on the spot from how perfect it had all been.

“Well,” Crowley sighed, making himself relax against the chair’s back in spite of the way it caught on the buttons of his shirt. “I mean, aren’t you always the one talking about how appearances can deceive? Can’t you at least check and make sure?”

He fluffed his coverts a bit and risked a glance over his shoulder. Aziraphale’s face was tight and unreadable, and Crowley bit his lip. He’d never seen Aziraphale look like that during this, like he might really be unhappy with the thought of grooming Crowley’s wings. Crowley let his feathers lie flat again and folded his wings a bit closer to his back.

“It’s not like anyone’s going to be touching them, if all you need is to look good while you make a report,” Aziraphale pointed out, his hands finding each other in front of his belly. He looked a few moments away from wringing them, and Crowley felt an uncomfortable sort of pressure in his chest, like something was slowly squeezing the air out of him.

“Ah. Well, that’s a point.” Crowley swallowed, his throat feeling suddenly raw. “I suppose if things’ve got that far, I’ve got bigger things to worry about, yeah?”

“And really, they look fine.” Aziraphale spread his hands and laughed, that high-strung chuckle that was more about nerves than anything else. “I mean, mine haven’t looked this good in years.”

Crowley blinked, glad of his sunglasses for the thousandth time that week. Aziraphale at least couldn’t see the idiot surprise dawning, couldn’t come to an even worse conclusion than the already-unflattering one that Crowley deserved.

“Poor thing,” Crowley said, furling his wings right out of the material plane. He’d been looking forward to Aziraphale working on his wings, but it didn’t hold a candle to finally getting a crack at working on Aziraphale’s. He’d just assumed it wasn’t on the table, that the angel who made such a fuss about touching his would never let him return the favor. He pushed himself up out of the chair and rolled his shoulders, recombobulating his spine around the sudden absence of a pair of limbs. “We’ll get it fixed up in no time, though, won’t we? Have a seat.”

“What?” Aziraphale stared at him, face gone blank and eyes gone wide.

“Do unto others, turn about’s fair play, and all that other stuff you’re always banging on about,” Crowley said, tapping the back of the chair he’d just vacated. “You’ve done mine what, a half a dozen times now? If you need yours done, it’s only fair, innit?”

“I don’t…” Aziraphale looked at the chair with a mix of fascination and horror, and Crowley felt like that was pushing it, even for eternity’s most melodramatic principality. “That’s not what I…”

“Come on, angel,” Crowley sighed. Aziraphale wouldn’t have brought it up if he was that opposed to the idea. And if it had been years since they’d had a properly thorough grooming, no wonder Aziraphale was so tightly-wound half the time. Crowley was usually an absolute wreck if he had to go more than a few weeks without putting everything in order. “Get ‘em out already, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

He reached for Aziraphale, smiling reassuringly.

Aziraphale recoiled and stared at Crowley as if he’d just suggested they sacrifice a baby together.

Crowley let his hands fall to his sides, and he could feel the smile falling off his face without any sort of by-your-leave on his part. It had been such a nice idea, hadn’t it? Such a nice idea, and now Aziraphale was looking at him like that, and oh, he’d really fucked things up this time.

“Of course, if you’d really rather, ah, get it taken care of the next time you’re Upstairs, that’s probably for the, ah.” Crowley swallowed, and how curious, the way that squeezing sensation had moved all the way up into his throat. “For the best. You know, let a, let a professional handle it.” 

He was babbling. He was babbling, and Aziraphale’s expression was just shading further and further into horror. He’d been so stupid--stupid, and grasping, and reckless--and he wanted to laugh with it. He’d finally figured out how to fit in with all the rest of the wankers Downstairs, and just in time to tell Dagon a bunch of ridiculous lies about how he’d been personally responsible for the Soviet Union flying apart into anarchy.

Crowley glanced at his wrist, and of course he’d forgotten to put on his watch this morning. Not like Aziraphale was liable to notice, though, not with the way he was frozen like a deer in the headlights, plump face pale and blue eyes wide.

“Would you look at the time?” Crowley said, forcing enough brightness into his voice to choke on it. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Sorry to eat and run on you, angel, but you know how it is. Places to be, people to see.”

“Crowley--”

“See you around, yeah?” Crowley blurted, before he could stop himself. Aziraphale had sounded bewildered and unhappy, which tracked, Crowley supposed. He’d done _something_ in offering to groom Aziraphale’s wings, found a way to really muck things up in a way he’d never managed badgering and bribing Aziraphale to groom his. 

Maybe if he was lucky, it could be one of those things where they didn’t see each other for a few months and then never spoke of again instead of one of those things that came back on them in a screaming match after a decade of ignoring each other. _Just never breathe the word ‘wings’ in the angel’s presence again_ \--Crowley could do that. He could do that for the rest of eternity while dancing on the head of a pin. 

He didn’t know what he was going to do if he had to navigate the fucking hellscape of the Cold War screeching to a halt all by himself, just stand around twiddling his thumbs with no angel to have clever ideas and come up with a plan and all that with humanity threatening to start a thousand new hot wars until someone finally got brave and stupid enough to launch a nuke over one of them. He gave Aziraphale a jaunty wave that probably looked even more clownish than it felt and walked out of the shop at a clip that wasn’t exactly a scurry but sure as heaven wasn’t the nonchalant saunter he’d been trying for.

Crowley broke into a long, purposeful stride as soon as the door swung shut behind him. His first instinct was to run, to put as much distance between him and the scene of the crime as possible, but that hadn’t worked out well the few times he’d tried it. The last thing he wanted now was to collapse into a useless jumble of confused limbs after miscalculating what needed to happen when in order to keep himself upright and in motion. And he hadn’t left the bentley so far away; he’d be safely out of Soho in no time.

He just had to give Aziraphale space, that was all. They’d had moments like this before, times when Crowley pushed too hard and too fast and too far, with a demon’s treacherous confidence that his company and his attention would be more than enough inducement for someone to embrace the imposition. Times when Crowley forgot that being able to please the angel--being the world champion at pleasing the angel--didn’t translate into being pleasing to the angel. 

They hadn’t had one of those moments in while; Crowley’d been careful, after the holy water. It had been practically a guarantee that he’d eventually get too full of himself and reach for too much, that he’d fly too close to the sun and scorch his wings again, but he’d assumed it would take some time to build back up to it and get properly complacent. This hadn’t seemed like it would be playing with fire, not really, but then Crowley had always been good at lying to himself about what he could get away with. Aziraphale hadn’t acted any more put out by Crowley demanding the angel check his wings over than the angel had by anything else Crowley had talked him into over the years. Aziraphale had, quite possibly, been about to buckle under one final straw for years with Crowley none the wiser and blithely wandering around, looking for just the _right_ straw to throw on the pile.

“Fuck, fuck, blessed fucking _fuck_ ,” Crowley snarled to himself. He made it to the bentley and shoved himself in, slithering behind the wheel and throwing himself back in the seat. 

It’d be fine. Aziraphale just needed a bit of space. And really, some space would be good for both of them. He’d been neglecting his duties lately, and Aziraphale had probably been feeling suffocated with Crowley’s hovering. It was entirely probable, in fact, that Aziraphale had felt like some little pleasure that Crowley was bound and determined to drain to the very last drop, some comfort that Crowley had sunk his teeth into and was determined to bleed dry, some delicacy that Crowley would devour and then gnaw down to the rind.

He ran his fingers through his hair, letting them go clawed and sharp, and the prickle and catch in his scalp helped ground him. He was here and now, not ten years into some nebulous future where Aziraphale had abandoned him for a more amenable clique of poets and painters and lovers incapable of worshipping him in a way he didn’t like. He’d give Aziraphale a bit of space, and worry instead about the all things that actually could get him royally, eternally fucked, and once he was back from pulling the wool over head office’s eyes, he could deal with whatever it was he’d done to sour things with the closest thing to a friend he had.

Crowley threw the car into gear and swerved into traffic, enjoying the chorus of honks and the sudden peak in vitriol that the maneuver provoked. Humans--absolutely delightful. He smiled thinly to himself and turned the stereo up. He’d only got the cassette in the deck the day before, and so it actually was The Clash that blared from the speakers instead of an unexpected Freddie Mercury cover of “Four Horsemen.”

He drove aimlessly, cutting people off whenever they seemed a little too happy for the time of day, until it occurred to him that he really did need to brush up on how things were spilling out of control in all the places he’d be lying to Dagon about.

“Ugh.” 

He made an illegal U-turn without much slowing down, and a pedestrian had to dart out of the way to narrowly avoid being run over. Crowley glanced in the rearview and pursed his lips. Knocking the bottom out of the man’s shopping bag on top of almost running him down seemed a bit much; Aziraphale would scold him for even thinking it, if the angel was in the passenger seat. Of course, Aziraphale wasn’t in the passenger seat. Crowley snapped his fingers, and suddenly there were a dozen eggs smashed on the sidewalk and a pound of oranges rolling away.

It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it should have been, not without a pair of pretty eyes tightening in disappointment and a prissy counter-miracle to follow it up, ensuring that the absconding oranges wound up underfoot of people who’d offer a helping hand.

Crowley grimaced and put his foot down, shoving the pedal almost all the way to the floorboard. Not nearly as satisfying as it should have been, no, but it’d have to do, wouldn’t it?

* * *

The ansaphone’s light was blinking by the time Crowley actually made it back to his flat, which wasn’t as unusual as all that, but then again he couldn’t remember anyone owing him a callback. He shrugged out of his coat and kicked off his shoes, miracled a glass of scotch into his hand, and hit the button.

Newspapers probably wouldn’t have what he wanted on the USSR splitting up. Maybe some diplomatic journals? Crowley shook his head as the tape wound through its patter, announcing who he was and what he wanted. 

Economic white papers and defense department briefings--that was the ticket. Something American, with their wide-eyed, coke-fueled optimism about the opportunity for financial pillaging in naive markets controlled by weak states and their equally wide-eyed, coke-fueled paranoia about the opportunity for a surge in black market arms and nuclear weapons on the auction block to keep the lights on in some postage stamp of a new republic that was half Kyrgyz herdsmen and half deported Russian dissidents.

The first message was from a journalist he’d been in touch with over the summer, calling to ask if he’d gotten a load of ‘the sushi incident’ and what he thought it would do to the upcoming American elections. There was an underlying thread of something else under the jocularity, though, and Crowley thought back to what it was he’d grilled the man for information over. 

Crowley slouched back against the red velvet cushions of his most impressive chair and let his eyebrows climb. An old man soon up for reelection after an odd little war with a de facto client state… it could easily lead to a renewal of hostilities in the Persian Gulf, couldn’t it? Satan knew it had gotten to be like clockwork for a while in Britain--every forty years, back they went to Afghanistan on this or that pretext, the guiding principle boiling down to little more than a necessary distraction from cratering domestic affairs and the collective opinion of the ruling class that now that everyone who went last time was dead, maybe the poor fucks actually keeping the place running would let them get away with it again. Crowley had certainly seen dumber things happen.

The second message was from a solicitor hoping to speak to “Anthony Crowley, Senior” about the contents of an estate she was executing. Rare folios and heirs interested in selling, indeed. Crowley could read the tension in her words like one of those folios, the way a tidy sum could be split down the middle with minimal acrimony instead of endless bickering about who got the house and who got the contents and how to split the tax bill after. He jotted down her number. He’d gone a bit overboard at the end of the ‘60s, what with Aziraphale entertaining his overtures again, and he’d made a bit of a name for himself in the rare books market. And who knew--if they had something really worth seeing, it might help smooth things over with the angel a second time. Beautiful drive this time of year, whichever way it broke.

The third message made his blood run cold and his stomach feel like the floor had just dropped out from under him.

“It’s me. I think there are a few things we need to discuss. Call me when you get this.”

Aziraphale’s voice was firm and cool, and underneath it all Crowley could hear how many times he’d practiced those three sentences before he’d called and how much of a pep-talk he’d had to give himself before he could sound firm and cool and authoritative. Crowley could guess at what Aziraphale had to say that had required all that, and Crowley decided the last thing he was going to fucking do was call Aziraphale and listen to the angel tell him all about it. 

It would be like talking to Gabriel more than Aziraphale, anyway--Gabriel’s talking points, Gabriel’s opinions, Gabriel’s thoughts on how angels should be and how things should work. And when that shell finally cracked, it would be Aziraphale’s heart spilling raw and bleeding from the wound, Aziraphale asking why Crowley couldn’t just _listen_. The angel hated fighting, hated quarreling, and when he got pinched hard enough between what Heaven demanded and what Crowley goaded him into, sometimes it felt like he hated Crowley.

Unless there was trouble, and that was why…

Crowley swallowed and checked the ethereal plane, just in case. No--everything was fine, Aziraphale wasn’t in any sort of danger. Nervous and unhappy, yes, but safe. Crowley pushed himself to his feet. Aziraphale had been so content with the tea, and then Crowley’d had to go grubbing after more. 

He’d seen Aziraphale try to act; he knew the angel hadn’t just been pretending to be fine with grooming his wings before. Aziraphale had nearly driven Shakespeare to drink with his wooden delivery and constantly breaking character, and the nonsense they’d let actors get away with back in those days beggared belief by current standards. All that, and never mind the thespian virtuosity and sangfroid that went into fooling someone in person after they’d known each other for millennia. It was out of the angel’s range; what one saw with Aziraphale was almost always what one got. So what had changed in the interim?

Crowley rubbed his chin and tried to think it through logically. Aziraphale wasn’t due to report back to Heaven for another few years, but that didn’t mean no one had dropped by to give him a prophylactic lecture about staying vigilant and thwarting the Adversary’s wiles. Exactly the sort of thing they’d do, too--pop down to Earth to deliver a baseless bollocking because there was nothing else on for the afternoon. Pricks, the lot of them, and that was back when Crowley had known them. From what little Aziraphale let slip when he’d had a few, they’d only gotten more insufferable with everyone who might have kept them in check and minding their manners either dead in the War or fallen into the Pit.

So either Aziraphale had somehow turned into a top-notch character actor, humming and sighing his way through an hour-long grooming session that saw him scrubbing his hands bloody to cleanse himself of it the moment Crowley was out the door, or Aziraphale had gotten a scolding of his own since the last time that saw him guilt-ridden and terrified of indulging in it now. Or some odd third option that had come out of left field, Crowley supposed, but he wasn’t going to figure anything like that out without a functional crystal ball or inside information.

The first wasn’t impossible, even if Crowley didn’t want to think about it. Aziraphale had been nervous but holding it together until Crowley had started in on him about returning the favor. If the angel had been gritting his teeth and thinking of Heaven the whole time he’d been rooting around in Crowley’s feathers, doing the same thing while a demon fouled his own might be a bridge and a half too far. 

The second was simply more likely, though. Aziraphale had his own way of dealing with Heaven’s pressures and Heaven’s demands, and there was a certain rhythm to it, when Crowley sat back and looked at the big picture. Some archangel or other would make him feel inadequate, and Aziraphale took it to heart and tried his best to conform to their impossible expectations, and any attempt on Crowley’s part to comfort him or talk him down was just as likely to make it worse as it was to help. Eventually Aziraphale would exhaust himself with it, or find some new bit of hedonism to enjoy, and the sky wouldn’t fall when he forgot to hate himself over it, and then after a bit things would stabilize around a happy, placid angel again.

Wash, rinse, repeat. It would be easier if Aziraphale would at least _tell_ him when he’d gotten a visit or been summoned ahead of schedule, but of course the tongue-lashing invariably made the angel feel guilty for trusting Crowley and letting his guard down around an enemy.

Crowley scowled at the phone, imagining how the call would go if he made it.

 _“So sorry, dear boy, but it’s just been pointed out to me that you are, in fact, a filthy, vile wretch, and it’s polluting my soul just to fraternize with you, never mind_ touch _you. I’d have known this already, but it also turns out that all of my natural inclinations toward mercy and love and forgiveness are also wrong, and I can’t trust a single instinct I possess, as God made me incorrectly as a test of my superiors’ forbearance. We’re hereditary enemies and must go back to acting as such, lest I get a demerit on my performance review. Toodle-oo, see you at the Final Battle.”_

Pricks. Utter, consummate, holier-than-thou _pricks_. Crowley glared at the phone as if it was somehow at fault for a bunch of archangels acting like love and tenderness were things to scrape off the bottom of their shoes. There’d been a fucking war over humanity being special, and somehow the ones who’d been on the ‘yes’ side of it still felt it was unbecoming for one of their lot to really _like_ humans.

Arguing with Aziraphale that he was probably the best of the bunch when it came to loving humanity only ever seemed to start fights, when Aziraphale had swallowed the poison like that. Arguing with Aziraphale that he actually liked Crowley didn’t start fights, but it sure seemed to end them, usually with stiff requests that Crowley leave and Crowley slamming the door behind him and having to pick between bawling like he had a right to sorrow and crawling into a bottle. At least getting good and drunk could be passed off as indulging in a vice, if he got called onto the carpet over it.

Easier just to not have the argument, really. Pretend he hadn’t gotten the message, skip the whole ordeal. He’d read his white papers and his Pentagon briefs, and talk rings around anyone who thought he wasn’t making a one-demon beeline for radioactive annihilation, and kill a few pints listening to a journalist fantasize about World War III starting not with a bomb or a bullet but with trace amounts of ciguatoxin in an American president’s goodwill-tour dinner, and dicker with an executor over the price of a dead man’s book collection. 

Assuming Crowley made it back out of Hell in one piece, the rest of it would be a cakewalk and probably take the remainder of the week, by which time Aziraphale would hopefully have calmed down enough to have a rational conversation about whether or not it was his sworn duty to make them both miserable by cutting off contact. It was the perfect crime--Aziraphale didn’t know enough about answering machines to suspect him of lying, and Crowley would have a pile of books with which to distract him from any lingering doubts. 

Two hours later, Crowley was elbow-deep in precisely the sort of lunatic theory and catastrophic prophecy dressed up in modern buzzwords and backed up by thinktanks that made him genuinely hope humanity wasn’t as _made in God’s image_ as all that. If humans really were a chip off the old block, it boded more than a little ill for the rest of them.

He also had an appointment to faff about the sweeping and centuries-old library of a modest country cottage for as long as he wanted over the weekend, and a semi-clandestine meeting scheduled for Friday that he gave thirty minutes before it turned into a good old-fashioned piss-up once his contact started trying to convince him of the future importance of being able to pronounce ‘Arkansas’ correctly.

Another two hours after that, and Crowley was sure he’d hit on a fool-proof line of reasoning that would get him out of the next three quarterly reports and credited with anything that went wrong anywhere near the Balkans for the next twenty years. Half an hour to spare, and he could already see the stacks of commendations joining the rest of the detritus on his desk Downstairs, waiting to be slowly engulfed by the dunes of neglected paperwork like an abandoned city being reclaimed by the Sahara. Crowley smirked to himself at the thought and put on his sunglasses.

It was showtime, all right, and he had more than enough human-generated bullshit to baffle a whole legion of demons.

Two hours after _that_ , Crowley was staggering into a bar and thinking it really was a damned shame no one had wanted to hear it.

“Oi, mate, I’m not saying we’ve been compromised,” he said, payphone jammed between his ear and his shoulder and a jittery expat muckraker trying to talk operational security at him. “I’m saying I just had a riotously shit day at the office and want to get properly smashed someplace nobody gives a toss about.”

The paunchy, balding man who turned up ten minutes later was ever so slightly more paunchy and balding than he had been when Crowley had first met him, and very decidedly more fond of uppers. It was probably, Crowley thought, the Cold War looking like it might really end all of a sudden like that. Made everybody nervous of going to bed, being afraid they might wake up in a whole new world the next morning. Even if it was loads better than the one they’d closed their eyes on, it was a reminder that everything they knew would eventually pass.

“Gonna give yourself a heart attack, you know,” Crowley told him, sliding over a pint.

“Cheers. Anything else my mother’s ghost want you to pass along?” Davis asked. Crowley still couldn’t remember if it was a surname or not, and it was far too late to risk asking. There was also the fact that he didn’t really care; the man answered to it, which was enough for anybody.

“Wash behind your ears, take your vitamins, and don’t be afraid to forget the rubbers every so often.” Crowley raised his glass. “She wants grandkids, apparently.”

“Or for me to get the clap,” Davis snorted. “So, horrible day at the office. You get ‘made redundant’?”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. Just stick to lying about how American states are pronounced. And no. I’m ahead of schedule, got a bit told off about it, and then this upstart who’s had it in for my boss since time immemorial started a brawl.”

“What, like a real one?” Davis raised his fists like a bare-knuckle boxer. “Drunken sailors on shore leave?”

“I missed taking a chair to the face by this much.” Crowley held his thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart. The chaos had been unbelievable--rotting reams of unfilled requisitions flying everywhere, teetering mountains of unapproved reassignments toppling over and landing on the unlucky. If Dagon had ever actually given half a blessing about keeping things in order, she’d have gone spare at the mess, never mind the mutiny.

Davis shook his head ruefully and raised his glass. “How’d you intelligence guys get the James Bond rep with stuff like that going on?”

“Intelligence?” Crowley asked, raising his eyebrows. Davis rolled his eyes and drank his beer.

“All right--loose lips, blah blah blah. It’s not my first rodeo, though.”

“I haven’t seen the faintest flicker of intelligence out of anyone in my office in centuries.”

“See? That right there.” Davis set his glass down with a heavy thunk and tapped the bar with his finger. “Every single acknowledged spook I’ve ever met has made that joke. And all the military intelligence guys say the whole department’s an oxymoron.”

“Well, no sense reinventing the wheel, I suppose.” Crowley sighed. 

Dagon had listened to his economic projections for all of three minutes before telling him to leave some work for other demons, and when he’d brought up the American elections and the possibility of renewed hostilities in the Middle East, she’d turned a whole new and interesting color and told him that was another department’s turf. Then, after she’d been done with that, he’d gotten chewed out properly over the idea of nuclear weapons falling into private hands. 

Apparently they’d finally gotten around to crunching the numbers, and the constant threat of universal annihilation had been a net win for Heaven. Crowley still wasn’t sure what he’d have done next if it hadn’t been for Mammon bursting in and demanding his due; his own entire strategy had hinged on being so productive and industrious that it triggered everyone’s sloth reflexes and made them want to thwart him out of spite. Whatever Crowley might have come up with, though, it probably would have been less alarming and more productive than almost getting stabbed with a pair of hedge-clippers by Duke Ligur. 

“So,” he said, lifting his glass. “Kansas.”

“Is Kansas.”

“But Ar-kansas--” Crowley couldn’t help but smile at the irrational spike of anger he felt off Davis every single time he said it like that. He’d almost gotten stabbed, and someone had thrown a chair at him, and no one had wanted to hear about Governor Clinton’s challenge to the reign of a president already reaping the profits of a resource war in Hell’s favorite hot-zone, but he could mispronounce a word at a friendly acquaintance and be instantly awash in a comfortable aura of wrath.

“It’s Arkans _aw_. On account of the French settlers getting there first, back in the day.” Davis finished his drink and signaled for another.

“So, back in the day, the French made it to Ar-kansas and the English made it to Kansas?” Crowley asked. “The 1920s must have been a very trying time to be an American.”

“You keep this up, I’m putting the next week’s worth on your tab,” Davis warned him. He scoffed into his beer. “The _1920s_.” 

Crowley waved a hand. Davis was welcome to put the rest of the year’s worth on his tab, if it made him feel any better about his country’s ridiculous excuses for political chicanery. And Crowley had thought Cardinal Richelieu was bad. Of course, a great deal of that had probably, in retrospect, been the way a certain angel couldn’t seem to keep a sword out of his hand that whole century. There’d been something about that particular breed of nakedly hypocritical holiness that had brought Aziraphale’s romantic streak roaring out of hibernation and right into trouble.

“It was settled in the 1600s, and then the Louisiana Purchase--”

“What, you tried to get Louisiana and they fobbed you off with Ar-kansas?” Crowley grinned. “That’s bad practice, that is. Didn’t anyone check before taking possession?”

“Next week’s worth,” Davis said firmly. “Louisiana was a lot bigger then.”

“Sure you don’t mean the Lewis-iana Purchase?”

Davis stopped drinking, turned on his stool, and glared daggers at him. Crowley gave him a look so innocent it might have even fooled Aziraphale for a second or two.

“I’m beginning to get the whole lack of intelligence thing,” Davis muttered, shaking his head and turning back to his beer.

“I’m just saying,” Crowley said, shrugging. “Ar-can-saw. ’s not French. You go to France and tell them it’s pronounced like that because of them, they’d spit on you.”

“They’d spit on you for going to France at the moment--it’s not indicative of anything.” Davis traded his empty glass for a full one. “I’m just saying, though, that this whole bad-sushi thing is just… it’s suspicious. Convenient.”

“I assure you, a head of state with a nuclear arsenal at his disposal projectile-vomiting at a diplomatic dinner is a lot of things, but convenient is not on the list,” Crowley laughed. He hadn’t actually been on-site for it, but he’d been present at similar cock-ups over the years. Everybody scrambling to figure out what was really happening, blaming each other, giving anyone who looked convenient the evil eye just in case--it was complete, rabid anarchy, always. Even if it resolved itself peacefully into a bit of indigestion and too much to drink, the suspicion and hard feelings lingered for years sometimes.

“Not for anyone at the dinner, no,” Davis agreed. “But do we know where Andropov was during all this?”

Crowley stared at him. “The fuck does _Andropov_ care--”

“Last chance to take out his rival, his opposite number--”

“The American president?”

“The head of the CIA!”

“He’s not, though, he’s--” Crowley made a noise. He was pretty sure somebody would have said, if they’d got a country with nuclear missiles where the head of the whole thing was also heading up the security apparatus. Then again, it _was_ a different department, and there were lots of pies he didn’t have a finger in. “You can’t be both, can you? Seems inefficient. Or too efficient. Y’know, so efficient it turns into a nightmare.”

“He _was_ head of the CIA,” Davis insisted, “when Andropov was head of the KGB. So Andropov’s got a last chance to take out his rival, and that’s during a goodwill tour in the Russian sphere of influence? I mean, Bush’s out there basically rubbing salt in the wound of the crumbling empire, and you don’t get to run the KGB for fifteen years without a heaping helping of patriotism.”

“I… Are you really…” Crowley squinted at his own almost-empty glass, then at Davis. “They’re out here staging a fucking coup--which didn’t work, mind--and you think they’ve got the… the wherewithal to go around mildly poisoning a president to embarrass him in front of a third party?”

“Andropov’s not staging coups,” Davis said smugly. “He’s retired.”

Crowley brightened when he finally put his finger on what had been nagging at him. “Ha! He’s not nothing--he’s fucking dead. Been dead since… since fucking perestroika. Glasnost did him in.”

Aziraphale had been in a somber mood when the news had broken, Crowley remembered now. He’d been mildly surprised by it at the time, but the angel had drunk to the man’s memory. Something about people doing their best to encourage humaneness and reason and restraint even in the worst of systems, even when it would be easier and more rewarded to simply be a beast. Crowley was pretty sure nobody got to be the head of the secret police without being a great deal more beastly than the angel was willing to admit to in this case, but he hadn’t quite been able to say it in the face of Aziraphale’s moroseness.

Davis smirked. “That’s just what they wanted you to think. He faked it so he could retire.”

“Retire and meddle with American elections in the most byzantine way humanly possible, in favor of the governor of a state with a ridiculous name that doesn’t make any sense.” Crowley finished his beer. This was why he liked people like Davis--too much imagination by half and the sort of unwillingness to contort their schemes to fit reality that had seen humanity almost build its way back to Heaven. They were dangerous and brilliant and one never knew what to expect out of them. Pity half the time it turned out to be a right disaster, but at least it wasn’t boring.

“Well, you know.” Davis waited until Crowley was paying attention to finish the thought. “Everybody needs a hobby.”

Satan help him, he couldn’t help but laugh at that. Aziraphale was leaving terrifying messages on his ansaphone, and a Duke had it in for him but not enough to go find a proper knife. He’d basically been told off for working too hard. But in spite of all that, Crowley could sit here now and listen to a journalist tell wild stories he didn’t even mean in an awful dive and drink until he couldn’t remember any of it properly the next morning.

“Here, I’m not drunk enough for this yet,” Crowley chuckled. He held up a crisp new note for the bartender. “Just leave the bottle, will you?”

The bottle was only a third gone when Crowley was shaking his head and holding up his hand and saying, “Listen. _Listen!_ You’ll get a kick out of this one.”

“Yeah?” Davis snorted, swaying on his bar stool. “Okay, hit me.”

“You know what I’m gonna be doing this weekend?” Crowley asked, grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t believe he’d almost blown Davis off, almost not renewed the acquaintance. It was delightful, being able to be half-honest with a mortal and not have to them going mad with it or joining a monastery or trying to found a cult as soon as they realized what he was telling them. The age of cynicism made it infinitely easy for clever humans to draw as many wrong conclusions as they liked.

“Pfft. Debriefing a herd of spies trying to defect from a state that doesn’t exist anymore?” Davis asked.

“I’m gonna be out in South Downs, pretending to be my own son.”

“Okay.” Davis blinked owlishly at him.

“Because some fucking idiot who shall remain nameless,” Crowley touched his chest with a thin smile, “forgot how human ages work for a few years there, and, well. You know how old a man born in ‘27 would be now?”

“Shit. No.” Davis squinted at him, then at the bottle. “You can’t just spring fucking math--”

“Mathssss,” Crowley corrected, barely refraining from flicking his tongue out. 

“Fuck you, I can barely handle one of them right now,” Davis groaned. “You can’t just spring fucking math on a man when he’s had however much we’ve had, divided by two.” He started counting on his fingers. “He’d be… he’d be fucking sixty-five.”

“He would be, yeah.”

Davis put his head down on the bar for a moment and giggled. When he sat up again, he shook his head blearily. “So you’re… you’re pretending to be the son of your botched paperwork. Because you’re too lazy to redo it so it’s right. You’re masquerading as your own alias’s kid. Your cover story went back in time and fumbled another cover story into existence.”

Crowley waved his hands like he was performing a magic trick, and Davis frowned.

“Is that how you wind up with those fake couples going undercover as husband and wife? Some clumsy bastard accidentally checks the ‘married’ box on the paperwork, and then they have to go roust some poor broad out of the kiss-and-tell department to play Mrs. John Q. Smith for a month or two?”

Crowley thought about it for a few moments. “Dunno. I suppose at that point I personally would be redoing the paperwork. ’s not fair, dragging someone else into your cock-up if they didn’t have anything to do with it in the first place. Guess it depends on how much you hate filling out those bloody forms, though.”

Aziraphale, for instance, loathed paperwork with a passion that bordered on infernal. Crowley’d just gotten into the habit of filling out enough to get him what he wanted and then being well out of the vicinity when whoever he’d filed it with realized he’d left a great deal of very important sections filled in with indecipherable scribbles and total gibberish.

“Unbelievable.” Davis raised his glass. “To a lack of intelligence.”

Crowley raised the bottle. He could drink to that, couldn’t he? “To a profound and persistent lack of intelligence.”


	2. Chapter 2

The bar miraculously didn’t see fit to kick them out until dawn, and Crowley tipped Davis into a cab just as the sun was rising. 

Crowley shoved a handful of tenners at the driver and waved vaguely at Davis. “Just get him wherever he’s going, yeah?”

Davis mumbled half an address and then started snoring, and the cabbie looked from the wad of bills in his hand to Crowley and then shrugged.

Crowley watched the cab pull away from the curb and wished he didn’t have to sober up. He forgot, sometimes, what it was like to be out among people who thought he was interesting and funny and a bit dangerous instead of irritating and vaguely noisome.

They didn’t see him, was the thing--they saw what they wanted to see, or what they thought they should be seeing. If Crowley got enough of the right status markers down and said the right things, they filled in all the little details by themselves, turning him into a British spy, or a gentleman’s son gone into the stock market, or the kind of solicitor who made loads of cash and went to all the right parties and could talk the crown jewels right off the queen. 

He could play dress-up and lie a little, slip on a comfortable mask, and they’d happily slot him right into the next empty space at the table and ring him up whenever they wanted someone to scandalize them by saying something properly wicked and confide in him whenever they wanted to feel better about not having done the right thing.

“Well, it’s not like you killed anyone,” Crowley would say, patting their hand and pouring them a drink. “And how bad could it really have been, if you did it?”

The kicker was that half the time it wasn’t even that bad, and Crowley wanted to fly into a rage instead of offering sympathy. What did it gain anybody--Heaven or Hell--to have people excoriating themselves over loving the wrong people or telling harmless lies or not confessing everything to some nosy priest?

Crowley glared at the sunrise and let out a long, slow breath. Time to sober up again, all right. If he let himself keep going in this vein, he’d wind up pounding on the door of a confessional and demanding to know where they all got off. He’d made the papers with it last time, which he knew because Aziraphale had sent him a clipping of the article by post. The enclosed note had simply read, “Really?”

Really, indeed.

Crowley miracled the liquor back out of his bloodstream, then looked down at himself and miracled his corporation clean and pressed and good as new. He looked like he’d just left home, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to face the world and not even a little like somebody who’d almost been stabbed in a fight with a bunch of demons. Just the sort of look he needed, if he was going to be seen raising Hell in every embassy, news bureau, and house of ill-repute favored by the employees of the first two in London.

He grinned, a sudden idea striking him. If he really applied himself, he could pop back Downstairs, give Dagon a smug, self-satisfied, brutally rapid-fire update on all the directives he’d carried out since last time, and get told to fuck off and never come back. If he caught her at just the right time, still puffed up and angry over Mammon’s impertinence, he might even get a decade-long reprieve.

It’d be worth it, wouldn’t it? And whatever Aziraphale had to tell him, Crowley could forestall it by announcing that he’d fixed everything with the Russians and gotten kicked out of Hell for it. Aziraphale would be too gobsmacked to keep going with his own break-up speech and want to know everything, and then Crowley could take him out for dinner and amuse him with the details and remind him of all the ways Heaven’s idea of a demon didn’t apply to Crowley. It would all be fine. And even if it wasn’t fine, and Aziraphale didn’t want to hear it and closed the door in his face, at least it’d keep Crowley out of Hell’s crosshairs for a bit.

Crowley hoofed it back to the bentley, miracling away the layer of parking tickets it had grown since he’d parked it in an unloading-only zone twelve hours ago. He had diplomats to inspire and journalists to also inspire and…

He climbed behind the wheel and pursed his lips. All the papers and treatments and projections he’d read had been keen on the consequences and practically non-existent on the prevention. No one had really bothered explaining how to keep mercenaries and arms dealers from stripping the Soviet weapons depots and manufacturing facilities bare and using the supplies to pour fuel on long-standing petty conflicts around the globe. That it was going to happen had been taken as a given; all of the focus had been on what the fall-out would look like.

What would Aziraphale do, if he found himself in this position? “Fear not, for behold, I am come to you with sound foreign policy recommendations and tidings of geopolitical stability.” 

Crowley snorted to himself. That would be right out, even at the best of times. These days, people in the foreign service checked themselves into institutions until the newfound urge toward the holy and the just had passed, citing ‘nervous exhaustion.’ Even in the past, they’d have been more likely to fuck off and join the clergy than continue on and actually do the good works, after something like that. Aziraphale had lost three in a row to the cloth one decade, and it had been all Crowley could do to keep any real bastards out of their posts long enough for the angel to fix things.

It was a shame he hadn’t managed to get a bit more experience on the holy side of things, Crowley thought. All the jobs he’d picked up for Aziraphale had been straightforward affairs, too--a blessing here, a warning there, a bout of holy ecstasy followed by a vision on the right night. Heaven had wanted something very specific to happen, and Aziraphale’s orders didn’t admit creativity or deviation. The principality didn’t pull assignments that left anything to the imagination. Or, if he did, he never saw fit to share the details with Crowley.

Crowley frowned and pushed that thought away. Of course he only saw the tip of the iceberg, when it came to Aziraphale’s job. It was only natural, just like it was only natural for him not to tell Aziraphale all the gory details of what Hell was up to. 

Half the time it was boring, dangerous, or inevitable, and the other half of the time Crowley had already come up with some way to jam a wrench in the gears because the bastards didn’t really know what they were asking for and would just blame him when it went off the rails anyway. There was no sense in boring, worrying, depressing, or fretting Aziraphale over things he didn’t need to know, and Crowley especially didn’t need Aziraphale going sniffy and judgmental when he most needed the morale boost of Aziraphale smiling and laughing and calling him clever.

Not that he needed Aziraphale to tell him he was clever. He knew he was clever; it was just nice to have it acknowledged every so often. Crowley scoffed at himself. He was overthinking it now, though, wasn’t he? He didn’t have to come up with a grand global plan for peace, did he? 

He just had to put a thumb on the scale for the right _sort_ of plan. Like with the last couple of really big ones, how everyone acted during the peace talks that followed set the stage for a period of comparative calm and prosperity or left it an unparalleled powder keg just waiting for another spark to land and blow up the world again. It’d been like that in Rome and China, too, more or less; they’d been able to tell after a while if things would last based on whether the crew on top had wanted to win so they could say they’d won or had wanted to win so they could start building something new. It didn’t always work out that way, of course, but it got everybody moving in the same direction, for better or for worse.

The diplomats and the policy wonks and the economists all knew their business. He just had to plant a little suggestion about what they should want for all those newly-independent states and the scientists whose paychecks had stopped coming and the factories and storage facilities that might be deserted in a week. 

It was like how Caesar hadn’t needed to be an engineer, he’d just needed to tell his engineers he wanted a fucking river crossed. Foreign aid and partnerships and state support and normalized relations--Crowley didn’t need to hand anyone blueprints, just sort of _suggest_ that they should start drawing them up for the benefit of all mankind. Encourage people’s better natures, somehow.

It wouldn’t work, of course--not so’s he’d get in trouble over it, anyway. It would be like trying to shove a warship off course with a barge pole. But it didn’t have to work, did it? It just had to pump the brakes a few times to keep things from completely veering off a cliff and landing on a missile silo full of atomic weapons. And with the Balkans, of course, that was just sort of nudging everyone’s attention in the right direction and letting them sort it out. The whole region had been a shitshow since… Crowley frowned. The Ottomans? 

Probably before then, even, but things got fuzzy after enough repetition, and he’d never been stationed there long enough to get a distinct feel for it. He’d barely gotten used to Germany being one place, and then it was back to being more than one place for a little while, and now they’d gone and squashed it back together again. But people were a bit wary of shitshows right now. It was easier to get them all on board with making everybody sit down and hash it out instead of starting a war over it, right now.

Crowley cracked his knuckles and started the car. The nation-states of the world weren’t going to know what had hit them.

* * *

Crowley let himself into his flat and wondered how much trouble he could really get in if he poured the holy water Aziraphale had given him into a super soaker and headed Downstairs a third time. Probably not much, given how unlikely he was to survive the gambit, but still.

The thought that it wouldn’t be him getting in trouble, but the angel who’d supplied it, put an end to that bit of speculation.

Crowley flopped face-first onto the couch and groaned into the cushion. Not that it had been such a serious consideration, but really. He’d spent two days laying the groundwork for a spontaneous outpouring of goodwill and understanding from the foreign offices of everyone big enough to bother with an embassy, and he’d gotten a stapler thrown at his head for his trouble.

“It’ll be a big cash-grab and nobody concerned about their own mortality for the next sixty years!” he’d called over his shoulder on his way out. “You’ll see, we’ll get a whole shedload of souls, all thanks to my tireless efforts! Hail Satan!”

The three-hole punch had been next, one of those ancient stainless steel jobs from when they’d first been invented and manufacturers had somehow been under the impression that people were going to use them to punch holes in leather belts and planks of wood. Crowley hadn’t quite made it to his target of “And don’t come back until you’re sent for!”, but he figured he was good until at least the end of the millennium. It was a nice feeling, and dare he say it, there was a distinct warmth in his chest at the thought of being comparatively free for the next eight years. It just also felt like he’d run himself ragged and didn’t have a reason to get back up, with the job all sewn up like that and nobody grateful at all for his diligence and attention to detail.

Somehow--and Crowley wasn’t sure why, since he knew how these things went--he hadn’t expected the row he’d fled to still be going on when he’d circled back. It had been three blessed days; the whole fucking War had only taken two. The Earth had been created in six. Jesus had talked his way out of Death in three. Mammon and Dagon settling some petty dispute about residuals and proper attribution really shouldn’t have taken more than a few hours, at most. It certainly shouldn’t have spread, or required any sort of navigation through no man’s lands, or led to a lot of really unnecessary advancement in rubber band-based armaments.

But that was Hell for you, Crowley thought. Any excuse to start a fight and keep fighting. He’d delivered his report around the hostilities, from the cover of an overturned desk, and Dagon hadn’t been in the least bit appreciative of his industry in carrying out her directives.

The stapler chucked right at his face had, in fact, been preceded by a declaration that she didn’t _care_ if he’d been banned for life from the Belrusian consulate for persistently and loudly mistaking it for the Bulgarian consulate within earshot of visiting diplomats from five other countries. It had been a stroke of efficiency practically unmatched in Hell’s history, and more subtle than any of the rest of them could have managed, and he was still a bit proud of himself over it. And it had gotten a stapler thrown at him. It was rude from start to finish, and to top it off, he’d gotten a nasty paper cut on his way out.

Crowley pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at his hand. The cut was already healing, but there was no sense in being careless. Satan only knew how long some of those files had been down there, getting fouled with Satan only knew what. And that was on top of whatever they’d started out covered in; the only universal trait among Dagon’s forms was that they’d all been filled out by demons.

And if he managed to discorporate over a paper cut, he’d both never, ever live it down with Aziraphale and be begging a replacement from Dagon herself, so…

Crowley got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. A bottle of second-rate vodka was right where he’d left it; cocktails were a bit out of style these days, and it wasn’t nearly good enough to drink on its own. 

“The solution for so many things in life,” Crowley muttered, holding his hand over the sink and dousing the cut with alcohol. It stung, and he flexed his hand to get any bothersome little nooks and crannies good and sterilized. He could practically hear Aziraphale’s voice in the back of his head, scolding him for being careless. 

The first time he’d ever seen Aziraphale really speechless with anger, it had been at him for claiming that he didn’t technically need limbs, as a serpent. He’d almost lost a hand that time around, gotten careless during a little tribal skirmish and taken a bronze-tipped spear to the palm for it. Aziraphale had spent the next week flapping about like a giant dove with anger-management issues, all _let me help with that_ and _I don’t see why I can’t just…_ and Crowley barely slithering out of the way of three different accidental smitings as Aziraphale tried to bless him better. 

Aziraphale had been insistent that Crowley having been an angel once meant he could just miracle a demon whole again, no questions asked. For his own part, Crowley appreciated the thought--he did--but he’d in no way, shape, or form been willing to serve as a test case for that hypothesis.

Crowley dried his hand and meandered back to the ansaphone. He should probably check in on the angel, shouldn’t he? Aziraphale would have wavered since screwing up his courage and leaving the first message. Crowley could talk him down, talk him into lunch, act a bit pathetic about his recent wrongs. And if the conversation seemed like it was straying into something Crowley couldn’t handle, he could always pretend to be on the carphone and say it was going through a tunnel.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Crowley glared balefully at the blinking light, then sighed and hit play. The first message was from Davis, who didn’t sound like he’d sobered up in the least, congratulating him on being the first person to get preemptively banned for life from Bulgaria and asking for an exclusive, if Crowley wouldn’t have to kill him immediately after telling him.

“I didn’t want to go to Bulgaria, anyway,” Crowley muttered. He’d only wanted to put a word in several someones’ ears at once about the upcoming presidential election and its importance, given the state of… Well, every single one of Bulgaria’s neighbors, really. Even Turkey was likely to catch the spirit and pull some nonsense at this point, just so they didn’t feel left out of the UN’s motions to censure.

The second message was from the solicitor, letting him know that they were of course still on for the weekend if he wanted, but her schedule had opened up a bit and he was also welcome to come down tomorrow if he liked.

The third message was from Aziraphale, because of course it was.

“It’s me, again. I don’t know if you got the first message, but this is my second. If you could call me when you get this, I’d…” There was a breathy sigh; Aziraphale had never really gotten the hang of leaving recordings on machines. It wasn’t a practiced speech this time, then. “Call me, when you get this. Please.”

The angel’s voice sounded frustrated and sad, and perhaps a little worried, but there was some bedrock of genuine resoluteness to it this time. Like he’d thought about what Gabriel would say, if the archangel was there, and come to the conclusion that perhaps Gabriel really did have a point after all. Crowley closed his eyes and reached out, and there was that glittering ethereal presence in Soho, safe and sound and brave. Untouchable. Crowley imagined telling the angel who’d left those two messages that he’d gotten barred from a whole country, sight unseen.

Crowley went back to the kitchen and retrieved the bottle of vodka. He’d call Aziraphale back. He would. Just as soon as he got back from buying every worthwhile book in the entirety of South Downs.

* * *

“Your father’s still collecting, then?” the solicitor asked, opening the gate for Crowley.

He’d taken his time on the drive, enjoying the blast of the heater against the chill of the outdoors and the way the landscape seemed so alien compared to what it would look like in the spring. The village itself was ridiculously twee, and then he’d gotten to the cottage and found it fit for a postcard.

‘Charming’ had been the only word Crowley could muster, when he’d seen it. The only thing missing had been an angel bundled up against the cold, smiling and waving at the foot of the neatly-swept path.

And then Crowley had gotten out of the car, and he’d taken a proper look at it, and he’d decided it looked like something out of a fucking children’s movie. Too charming to be real, like someone had hunted down an architect and seized them by the lapels and threatened to end them if they didn’t come up with something _preternaturally_ charming. It was almost disturbing, how well they’d succeeded. 

Crowley was almost grateful he hadn’t been able to bring Aziraphale with him on the trip; the angel would have gone weak-kneed and soppy the second he saw the place. Crowley would have been obliged to spend the next five minutes rolling his eyes and groaning at Aziraphale’s exaggerated demonstrations of affection, because smiling indulgently and encouraging him would have just seen the difficult thing clamming up and pretending a restraint that didn’t suit him.

The solicitor--Dee, she’d said her name was, when they’d spoken on the phone--was the only thing about the tableau that seemed real.

“Still collecting, yes,” Crowley told her, looking around the yard. It was just as charming from inside the gate. There’d been a pond about a block away. It seemed like the sort that would have a whole flock of ducks, come summer. “Bit more circumspect about it these days, though. Uses an agent for most things. You know how it is at his age--there’s an appeal to a quiet life doing things you enjoy without so much fuss.”

“I apologize if this offer came across as forward,” Dee said, adjusting her glasses. Her hands had a birdlike motion to them that reminded him of Aziraphale when he was tense. “Most of the firm’s clients… that is to say, their wills don’t come as a surprise to the heirs most concerned in them. We encourage clear communication beforehand, to manage expectations during what’s already a very difficult time for the family.”

“An admirable goal, but family is complicated.” Crowley shrugged and followed her inside. 

It was warm in the cottage, and cozy, but it had that sense of holding its breath that came with houses meant to be lived in but vacant for some time. He wondered if the polished look had come from a small army of domestics turned loose on the place postmortem, or if it had been the work of the next of kin themselves. Grief did funny things to people, especially if they’d been grieving longer than the person had been dead. 

“It’s a bit unexpected,” he continued, looking around, “but I wouldn’t say forward. My father spent a while making up for lost time, back when his ship first came in. Bit in common with a fox in the hen house for a few years there. Drove my mum halfway up a tree, talking about how one thing got to be rare and worth a bundle while another thing could be picked up for a few quid at any bookshop with stock before the Blitz. Hard to forget that sort of thing--I can see why people have still got his card handy.”

“Associates at two different auction houses recommended him as a prospective buyer. It seemed reasonable to reach out.” Dee led him through the sitting room, with its generous Edwardian furniture and cheery curtains, to the library.

“Fuck me,” Crowley said, blinking behind his glasses. He’d guessed from the layout of the rooms they’d already seen that it would be generous, but the rest of the rooms were a lie meant to draw a veil across the fact that the cottage was at least half library. A picturesque spiral staircase led to the second level, its walls also lined from floor to ceiling with books. If a human had been fool enough to let Aziraphale design their home, it would probably look something like this.

“That sounded vaguely approving,” Dee ventured, after a minute passed without him saying anything else.

Crowley shook himself out of it and stalked along the shelves, hands clasped behind his back. Approving didn’t even begin to cover it. It was a long enough drive out that Aziraphale wouldn’t take the bus, no. He’d need a ride, especially if he wanted to bring more than a bag or two at a time back to the shop with him. It would take the choosy bastard _years_ to get through this lot, wouldn’t it? Years and years of whole weekends spent examining and cataloging and assessing, Crowley out of the way in some quiet corner where he could just watch the whole process happen, Aziraphale gravitating to the light pouring in through the windows as he ran joyful hands over this rarity or that favorite.

The collection itself was a good one, even to Crowley’s unpracticed eye. Things gone hard to find through small runs, first editions in good condition, whole sets from the original press. It was impossible not to hang around the angel for as long as he had and not learn a thing or two about the trade in general or what Aziraphale loved about it in particular.

“How much for the whole thing?” Crowley asked, turning around with his arms spread. “Lock, stock, and barrel?”

“You’re interested in the whole collection?” Dee asked, relief barely tempered by professionalism flooding her voice.

“Everything,” Crowley clarified. “Grounds, cottage, contents.”

“Oh.” Dee took off her glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief, and Crowley hadn’t seen someone trying so hard not to dance a jig in a good five hundred years. “I assume that offer excludes items of sentimental value that are only of interest to the family?”

“Not looking to pick up anyone’s family photo album, no,” Crowley said, shaking his head. He was a bit surprised there was anything like that still left in the place, but then maybe that would have required some degree of cooperation on the part of her clients.

“Your father’s interest doesn’t extend to portraits or family Bibles?” she prompted carefully. Depending on the family, they could fetch a pretty penny to the right buyer, but Aziraphale didn’t care for that sort of thing, and so neither did Anthony J. Crowley, Senior.

“My father’s getting on in years, Ms. Dee. He’s not looking for new hobbies. Something like this would be a nice project for him that he could manage in comfort, when he needs a break from the city or during times when daily travel’s just not on,” Crowley said smoothly, happy to wrap himself up in whatever fiction made her comfortable with the transaction. The dutiful son, careful of his father’s health and eager to see his golden years filled with good times and pleasant occupations--that was fine. The dutiful son, careful of his place in his father’s will and eager to forestall any unnecessary caretaking or emotional obligations with appropriate distractions--also fine.

So long as she took his money and handed over the deed, they could strip the place bare of everything but the books; he’d just fill it right back up with soft, comfortable things that would make Aziraphale sigh happily and settle into them like they’d been made for him. 

“He’s become a bit of a philanthropist, in his old age,” Crowley went on, because she seemed to expect a little more than that from him. People, especially important people, which was what he was pretending to be, liked talking about themselves, didn’t they? Crowley was out of practice, it seemed. Too much time chasing after an angel, probably, but that was a lot more fun than going to dinner parties anyway. “Anything that doesn’t find a home in his own collection has been going--anonymously--to fill gaps in research libraries and archives across the kingdom. A find like this could keep him happily and, most importantly, comfortably occupied for, well, quite some time, I’m sure.”

“In that case, I believe the heirs would be quite happy to come to an arrangement.” Dee put her glasses back on, cleared her throat, and quoted a figure that Crowley almost couldn’t help but laugh at. Well, he supposed she had to try. She’d probably more than earned whatever fee she was pulling off this disaster, and wanting out from under it didn’t excuse underserving her clients.

He did a few sums in his head, considered the going rate of real estate in the area, the value of the books and the furnishings, and made a counter-offer that was generous enough to have her eyes lighting up. He’d have to liquidate a fair chunk of stock, but there were a few cyclicals it was a good idea to unload anyway, if weapons manufacturing was about to take the hit it looked like it might.

Dee nodded carefully, doing her blessed best to keep her expression neutral. “I’ll of course have to present the offer to the heirs, but I believe they’ll find it satisfactory.”

“Wonderful.”

“If they agree, I should be able to have the paperwork in order sometime next week. In the meantime, can I show you around the rest of the property?”

Crowley bowed slightly and extended his arm toward the door. “Please, after you.”

He listened with half an ear as she showed him through the rest of the rooms. The half of the second floor not sacrificed to the library contained two cozy bedrooms and a bathroom with a sizeable clawed tub that Crowley couldn’t help but imagine Aziraphale wallowing in like an oversized woodlark. Not that the angel slept, or needed to bathe, but he’d known Aziraphale long enough now to recognize the appeal of those comfortable little routines. It wasn’t so unlike the soldier checking his equipment or the guard patrolling his route, except it was done for the indulgence of it all. There was a luxury to cleaning oneself even when one didn’t need to, a satisfaction to putting on soft clothes and climbing into a soft bed and reading there instead of in the library.

Dee hesitated at the garden door. “It was their mother’s. I’m afraid she predeceased her husband by quite a span, and it’s fallen into neglect. But the potential…”

“I’m sure there are no end of qualified and competent landscapers, if it becomes an issue,” Crowley assured her. Aziraphale was fond of gardens, but nothing was ever going to hold a candle to Eden. So long as Crowley could make it green again--and there was precious little Crowley couldn’t, if he really needed to--then Aziraphale would find it satisfactory enough to stroll through, picnic in, or pick flowers from.

Dee led him out into a bare yard. Here, the charm finally failed. He could see the outline of beds that had been cut down rather than replanted, the places where paths had been mulched in, the ghosts of topiaries past. The trees needed a competent pruning, but that was easily remedied.

Crowley shrugged. 

“If my father finds it depressing, I’ll hire someone. He’s not fussy, so long as there’s green and flowers.” He considered it more critically, thinking about how much sun it would get, how well-drained the soil seemed to be, how sheltered it was. “Tea roses, probably. An herb garden, some ornamental ginger. I know some chaps out at Bodnant--they’ll have plenty of suggestions, I’m sure. It’ll be fine.”

Dee relaxed, and Crowley wondered how much acrimony the estate had already generated. He glanced back at the cottage, eyes narrowed. Whatever misery it had served as a lightning rod for, he couldn’t pick up any lingering malice or bitterness around the property itself. Aziraphale would be perfectly happy there, poring over his books and drinking his tea and nibbling his biscuits. 

It would be like the little house they’d shared in Valencia that one sun-soaked summer--Aziraphale inspiring artists and artisans alike, Crowley meddling in the affairs of business and lying through his teeth about everything else, them spending warm drowsy evenings in the courtyard making up things to tell their respective superiors they’d done when they’d mostly left humans to get on with it. There had been sweet oranges for the asking and fresh fish for dinner every day and morning walks through the square in front of the silk exchange. It had been perfect and wonderful, and Crowley had dreamed of it every time he’d slept for the next hundred years.

Dee let him treat her to dinner down at the local pub, which was also charming but at least manageable levels of it. She ate her partridge and drank her wine and went over anything else she could think of, still marveling at her good fortune. Crowley drank his ale and picked at his shepherd’s pie and told her wild stories about his imaginary father’s collection, which still didn’t hold a candle to Aziraphale’s, and gave her every bit of contact information she could possibly need. It wasn’t something he’d ordinarily have bothered making sure all the Is were dotted and the Ts were crossed on, really--he wasn’t up to some Faustian bargain for somebody’s soul. 

But when it came to getting presents for the angel, it was important that everything was done on the up and up. Aziraphale could sense it, sometimes, if anything hinky had gone into getting something for him. There were other things that Crowley could see Aziraphale liking just as well, certainly. But this falling into his lap without him even having to go look for it? It felt like somebody making up for getting a stapler thrown at his head by a Prince of Hell. It felt like it was destined to make Aziraphale tremendously happy for a very long time, and Crowley didn’t want anything marring it even the slightest bit. He and Dee even shook on it, at the end of the meal.

Crowley slid behind the wheel of the bentley and looked out the window at the picturesque little cottage. If he let himself, he could imagine the eye-crinkling smile on Aziraphale’s face when Crowley told him to close his eyes and not spoil the surprise. Aziraphale would close his eyes, too, trusting thing that he was. He’d let Crowley take him by the shoulders and guide him up the walk, through the sitting room, and into the library. He’d be luminous when he opened them and realized the books were all for him. He’d be practically purring with it by the time he made it to the second floor, giddy and beautiful and overflowing with it. 

Radiant, Crowley thought. That’s what he’ll be, when he sees this. So happy he’ll shine with it.

_The only thing you have to do for it is promise not to ask me what it’s going to cost you. Just take it, for once, angel. Just let me give it to you, for once. Let it be nothing more than that, for once._

Crowley shook himself, his corporation growing heavy with cold in a silent car. If he let himself imagine it. He wouldn’t let himself, then. 

He started the car and cranked the heat. Aziraphale would like it, once he got whatever tear he was fixing to go on out of his system. It might take a few years, but that would give Crowley time to see about the garden, at least. It would also give him something to occupy his time, if Aziraphale was bent on dutifully snubbing the foul fiend of Mayfair.

It would be easier, of course, if Aziraphale could just recognize the way he was being manipulated and try to shield himself from it, but…

Crowley thought of the ongoing brawl Downstairs, all the rotting paperwork and the screaming and the petty grudges nursed more tenderly than any mortal infant. Aziraphale, probably better than any of the angels still in Heaven, knew what was waiting if he fell. Of course he would do whatever it took to avoid that fate, to avoid giving any of his own superiors an excuse. He couldn’t fight his own nature, but he would try, if they asked him to. He would try to toughen up, if that’s what they needed him to do. It wouldn’t work, but it wasn’t any kinder to point out that it wouldn’t than it was to just not say anything and let him get on with it.

And at the end of the day, Aziraphale treasured joy, and happiness, and love, and beauty, and hope. There’d be nothing left of him, if he got cast into the Pit and deprived of every single last bit of it, and there was nothing Crowley could do or say that would change that.

Crowley did his best not to be as hideously and pointlessly horrible as the rest of them. He was probably the least objectionable of any demon who hadn’t just lain down and given up after the Fall. The handful who’d crawled into cells and closed the doors after themselves and done their best not to exist anymore couldn’t be held accountable, at least, for the harm everyone still up and acting had done. Crowley’d done his share, but he hadn’t gone out and done more just for kicks. He found no joy in the brutality humanity couldn’t seem to keep themselves off of, and he’d prefer people get a say in whether or not they were damned. Aziraphale liked him, even if he’d never admit it while sober. And still, Aziraphale knew--and wasn’t afraid of acknowledging--that Crowley didn’t even deserve to loiter at the margins of Aziraphale’s grace, didn’t belong anywhere the light could still fall on him.

Of course the angel would never risk losing his place in Heaven. It was lunacy to hope for more from him, to hope for more _for_ him. The best they had was the slender neutral territory of Earth, between the intolerable perfection of Heaven and the intolerable grotesquerie of Hell.

But with this up his sleeve, Crowley could go back to London, make the call Aziraphale had asked him to make, and keep a stiff upper lip while Aziraphale told him whatever the angel needed to tell him. He could keep busy for the few years it would take Aziraphale to come back to him. He could train himself into nonchalance when Aziraphale didn’t quite apologize for dropping him but regretted it having been so long, admitted to missing him.

“Five years?” he could say, knowing his hands had been purified in five summer’s worth of soil and the garden was ready and blooming. “That long? Time flies, I’ll give it that. Kept busy, then, have you?”

Aziraphale could pretend to need a little favor as an excuse to meet, and Crowley could invite him to the cottage for the weekend to discuss it privately.

And if it wound up being ten, twenty, thirty--well. Crowley was a past master at stringing himself along. He’d catch Dee just before she retired and leave the cottage to his grandson, move in himself and plant the whole place with flowers that made the neighbors uneasy and delighted passing schoolchildren. When Aziraphale finally tracked him down again, he’d pretend to be scandalized but fall back in love with Crowley’s audacity. It’d be grand.

Crowley put the car into gear and floored it. He’d be back in London in no time.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was coming up again when Crowley finally made it back to Mayfair. He rubbed his eyes and shuddered at the night he’d had. There’d been a gaggle of nuns broken down on the side of the road, and something about the cottage must have rendered him properly delusional, because he’d thought it would be a great joke to stop and help the poor biddies. They’d been in a right state, too, with some of the older ones bundled up and shivering around their rosaries. The original problem had been with the engine, but then they’d pulled off at a bad spot and flattened a tire on top of it.

Crowley’d stowed the ones going blue from cold in the bentley with the heater running while he worked, and one of them had even been bobbing her head along to “Guns of Brixton” by the time he’d wrapped everything up. He’d miracled up a patch kit and a compressor out of his trunk and fixed the flat for them, smiling and saying it was no bother all the while. One of them had sworn he was an angel from Heaven, and he’d laughed to himself and then threatened the engine until it had decided to wait until they got where they were going to pass on to its eternal reward.

It had all been going swimmingly right up until it was time for them all to get on their way, at which point they’d done what grateful nuns were known for and what he’d have seen coming a mile away if he hadn’t been walking on air at the thought of Aziraphale’s reaction to the cottage, and they blessed him within an inch of his infernal life.

He’d almost been smoking from it by the time he’d gotten them to stop and get a move on, and he hadn’t needed the heater at all when he’d crawled back into the car and gotten on his own way. If it hadn’t been for Aziraphale accidentally doing it himself a time or two, honing Crowley’s defenses, he might have given them all a proper religious experience and burst into flame right in front of them.

Crowley pulled the bentley across an active driveway and poured himself out of the driver’s seat and onto the sidewalk. Aziraphale didn’t even have to be present to be a terrible influence on him. It was downright immoral, was what it was. Of course, if he called Aziraphale now, the angel would have to go easy on him, wouldn’t he?

“I thought of you, and I helped some nuns out of a jam, and look what they did to me, angel!”

Aziraphale might even click his tongue and run his fingers through Crowley’s hair and kiss his brow.

Crowley snorted to himself and cracked his neck. Infinitely more likely Aziraphale would shake his head and call him an idiot and be secretly flattered that a demon had done a good deed in his name.

Crowley dusted himself off and took the elevator up. He was a bit tired, was the thing. A bit tired, and a bit peckish, and he could really go for a bit of coffee and a bit of breakfast and a bit of a nap. Maybe he could wait until tomorrow to call Aziraphale. He’d hold up better if he was in fighting form, after all. He took bad news more calmly when he was well-rested and in a good mood.

And then the whole of it turned out to be an academic question, because he got to his flat and found the door ever so slightly ajar. Crowley reared back, looked wildly about the hall, and then flicked his tongue out, tasting the air.

Old books, fresh cologne, and goodwill toward men.

Crowley frowned at the door, as if it might tell him why the blessed fuck Aziraphale had dropped by and not locked up after himself. Maybe he hadn’t been able to reset the wards? But then he shouldn’t have had to deactivate them to get in, anyway--there was a hole carefully and painstakingly built into the defenses in the precise shape of one very specific angel. The door should have sprung open at his touch without even being asked, and the flat inside should have made him right at home.

Crowley gave the door a small push, and it swung open silently. Crowley slipped inside, craning his neck and narrowing his eyes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except…

Crowley flicked his tongue out again, and this time it was Aziraphale, plus coffee and pasties. His stomach would have growled, if he’d let it. Not just a bit peckish, after all--fucking ravenous, and bless the nuns right back for taking it out of him like that.

He shut the door behind him and crept carefully toward the source of the smell. Living room, then. He peered around the corner and found Aziraphale sitting primly on the couch, breakfast spread out in front of him on the coffee table. The angel looked tired, and uncertain, and very much as if he was trying to be brave. Crowley suddenly felt every inch of the blessing the nuns had hit him with, and his shoulders slumped.

“Aziraphale?”

“Oh.” The angel started, his head snapping up and his eyes widening. “Crow--oh, good Lord!”

Crowley plopped himself down opposite Aziraphale and snagged one of the pasties. Aziraphale watched him eat, blue eyes edged with gray and face tinged with alarm.

“What happened?”

“Rescued a pack of nuns from a cold and lonely grave on the side of the road in the dead of night in the middle of winter,” Crowley said, taking another generous bite of the pie. It was one of the cheap things they sold outside of train stations, with a miracle to keep it toasty warm, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something half as good. “For which I was blessed to Heaven and back, twice.”

Aziraphale looked hurt, then angry, then down at his hands. “If you didn’t want to tell me, you could just say so.”

Crowley wanted to bite him. He tore another chunk of out the pie instead, then swallowed it without chewing. He reached across the table, tipped Aziraphale’s chin up, and stared him down.

“A pack of fucking nuns broke down, and I fixed their fucking van, and then they tried to fucking murder me with holiness,” he growled.

Aziraphale’s cheeks went pink, and he looked away. “Oh.”

Crowley let go of his chin, suddenly aware that touching Aziraphale was a once in a century event, and he’d blown through this hundred year’s allotment the night the angel had given him the holy water.

“I think one of them might be a punk now, though, so that’s something,” Crowley said, finishing the pasty. He reached for a second one, pausing just long enough for Aziraphale to claim it if it was his. Aziraphale held up his hands in surrender, and Crowley picked it up. “Something wrong?”

“I…” Aziraphale’s brows furrowed. “Is there?”

“You never stop by, angel. And you left the door open. And you look like somebody fucking died.”

“I didn’t want to surprise you,” Aziraphale said, unclasping his hands and then interlacing his fingers. “And… you haven’t been answering your phone.”

“Been busy. Did you try my car phone?” Crowley asked, suddenly and acutely unwilling to admit to ignoring Aziraphale’s messages. He’d known he should have called him back right away. The only reason he hadn’t was that he’d been afraid of what the angel was going to say, which was an inescapably shameful reason now that he was faced with the consequences of it.

“I know you’ve been busy,” Aziraphale said softly, flushing. He glanced at the ansaphone, then back at his hands. “I may have… I didn’t erase anything, I don’t think, but I just wanted to check. I thought it might not be working.”

He’d been snooping, he meant, and Crowley wanted to laugh. His fiendish angel, listening to other people’s messages and then feeling guilty over it.

Crowley pushed himself off the couch, a heroic effort considering he never wanted to stand upright again, and hit play.

One message from Davis, first bawling him out for actually paying for drinks for the rest of the week on account of Davis’s liver being on thin ice as it was, then hooting over Crowley’s supposedly-confidential purchase of a crate of grenade launchers and saying it was no wonder Crowley’d gotten banned from Bulgaria. He finished up by advising him not to ‘pull a Larry Eagleburger,’ and Crowley genuinely hoped he wouldn’t have to go and find out what that meant anytime soon.

“It was a trial balloon,” Crowley said absently, when Aziraphale gave him a pointed look. “Entirely business-related.”

The ‘business’ of getting the arms dealer and his network to stop and think about their actions a bit more, for all that anyone was ever going to credit him for it. Crowley sighed. So much wasted effort. Though he supposed it would be a bit of fun, trying to figure out something to do with the grenade launchers. Might be just the ticket Downstairs, really give Dagon a leg up in the squabble with Mammon. Make inconvenient audits of his own paperwork impossible, too, if anyone got twitchy enough to pull the trigger and blow the whole thing up a bit worse than it was already.

Dee had also called, assuring him that it had been lovely meeting him and that everything was in order and she’d have an answer for him soon. It had, apparently, been a very nice evening, and she wished his father well.

“Anthony J. Crowley, Senior,” Crowley said, waving the hand not occupied with the pie. “Old geezer. You wouldn’t know him.”

And then, last but not least, Aziraphale leaving a third message. This one was just one word. “Please.”

No hint of a lecture or a brush-off in that one, just… worry. Fear.

“Here, now,” Crowley sighed, settling back on the couch. “What’s wrong, angel?”

Aziraphale wrung his hands, then made a visible effort to stop and put them on his knees instead.

“You ran out of the shop like I’d exorcised you, and then I couldn’t reach you for days.”

“Well, I mean.” Crowley snatched one of the coffee cups and started drinking. He’d beat a hasty but dignified retreat, and that was only because Aziraphale had looked cornered and horrified. He hadn’t called back, but that was only because Aziraphale had sounded ready to deliver a tirade against the Fallen. “I’ve been busy. And you had things of your own to get to--I didn’t want to impose.”

“You stared at your bare wrist and then said it was getting late and ran out so fast you practically took the bell off its spring.”

“Didn’t.” Crowley gulped at the coffee. “And anyway, you’ve reached me now, so what is it? What d’you need, angel? Just say the word, it’s as good as done.”

He gave Aziraphale a wan, encouraging smile. Whatever it was that had gotten Aziraphale so upset in between being ready to put Crowley in his place and breaking into Crowley’s flat, Crowley would put it right. He ought to have called him back right away, but he’d been too much of a coward. He should have called him back after the second message, but they’d fix it now, or get close enough that the angel wouldn’t mind so much.

Aziraphale took a deep breath and steeled himself, fingers digging into his knees. He looked at the table instead of Crowley and exhaled slowly.

“Could you… could you take care of my wings? Please?”

Crowley swallowed, suddenly regretting very deeply every last bite of pasty and every last sip of coffee. Aziraphale looked like he was about to ascend the gallows and be martyred for his faith, and all that misery at the thought of Crowley’s hands on him. Crowley’s fingers burned where they’d touched Aziraphale’s face, and Aziraphale’s food felt like so many rocks in his belly. Maybe it wasn’t so unlikely that Aziraphale had just been suffering through it all to keep Crowley in his pocket, to keep that inside line on what Hell was up to.

“Let’s not and say we did, angel,” Crowley said quietly, leaning back. He rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair, and this time he wanted to let his nails go sharp and dig in, rend the flesh, remind himself that everything he touched turned to ash and that he shouldn’t be so fucking surprised when it happened. He was only the vanguard of Hell, clawing at the heels of Heaven’s most vulnerable. For fuck’s sake, his first impulse on getting a bunch of ordinance was to hand it out to his colleagues like candy. _First hit’s free, you’ve got my number if you want more._ Of course Aziraphale didn’t want those filthy hands on his wings.

“Crowley?”

Crowley sighed and looked back at him, and Aziraphale seemed equal parts confused and stricken.

“Look, angel, I only ever asked you to do mine because it feels nice, and I knew you wouldn’t, you know, yank out a feather for fun or leave me looking halfway through a molt as a prank.” Aziraphale stared at him, face going even paler, and Crowley grimaced. Too much detail; Aziraphale didn’t need to hear it. “I didn’t mean to be a pest about it. I’d never have offered to do yours if I’d thought for a second it was a… sensitive subject. I’m sorry, and I promise I won’t bring it up again.”

Whatever Heaven expected Aziraphale to suffer for the cause, Crowley certainly didn’t.

“Oh.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale’s shoulders slump and his back lose that ramrod stiffness, and Crowley raised his coffee cup and took a long, bitter sip. He could be sick later, couldn’t he? For right now, he could fix the bits he could and start repairing the rest when Aziraphale gave him the chance.

“Truce?” Crowley asked, letting a bit of hope color his voice.

Aziraphale looked down and bit his lip, and Crowley choked back a sigh. Or he could just piss it all away like he’d done everything else. It was all right--it would be all right. It had only taken about a century for Aziraphale to forgive him over the holy water, maybe in a century or two this would be water under the bridge, too.

“I’ve been such a fool,” Aziraphale whispered, shaking his head.

“Angel,” Crowley said softly. He wanted to comfort him, wanted to kiss his hair and throw an arm across his shoulders and make him laugh again. He’d burn those treacherous instincts from his breast, if he could; he’d never see the angel again, if he tried any of that. And besides, what could Aziraphale have done that was foolish except for trust a demon? “Angel, you haven’t. You’re the cleverest person I know. I’m sure you haven’t.”

“I have.” Aziraphale braced his elbows on his knees, reached up and clasped his hands around the back of his neck. “I thought…”

Crowley waited for his sentence to be pronounced, his heart beating in his chest like waves pounding on the rocks. _Don’t send me away, I have nothing without you, I need you, let me hope at least, let me hope._

“I _assumed_ that you were tempting me,” Aziraphale said, a desperate, nervous little laugh slipping out afterwards.

“Oh.” Crowley tried to wrap his head around that one, but it steadfastly refused to be anything but what it was. 

Aziraphale had looked at him and seen, what? A monster painting its face and batting its eyes and asking if it wasn’t beautiful? A jade punching a timecard, checking one more thing off the list to get the bosses off his back? A shabby dealer lurking in an alley with a trenchcoat full of ill-gotten goods, most likely. And all the while, Crowley had been reveling in the feeling of those fingers in his feathers, smoothing and straightening and setting to rights. Aziraphale might have been a fool, but Crowley had definitely played the part more thoroughly and with infinitely greater relish.

“No,” Crowley said, after a moment. He forced the hoarseness out of his voice. This was no time for it. “No, it. It hadn’t crossed my mind, actually. Tempting, I mean, that’s… you start with something somebody wants but won’t let themselves have, for one. Even seduction, you’re sort of, I dunno, caressing someone into something, luring them. Not browbeating them into it.” He swallowed down the acid taste in his mouth, everything crystal clear in hindsight. “Which, again, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you meant it quite so much as you said you did, which was. Y’know, my fault. I should’ve listened. I _am_ sorry. Did I say that already? I meant it, if I did.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was so small, and so tired, and so sad, and Crowley couldn’t stand it.

“I’m sorry, angel. I am. Let me… let me make it up to you.” He could, couldn’t he? There were so many things Aziraphale wanted, and only Crowley to give them to him, maybe only Crowley to understand that Aziraphale even wanted things. “I’m sure there’s something you actually do want, that I could--”

“Crowley, I want you to take care of my wings.” Aziraphale dropped his hands and looked up at him, and there were tears in his eyes. Crowley gritted his teeth and turned away. Not quite a man about to be hung by the neck until dead, but still not a creature overjoyed by the prospect of what was to come.

“You look like you’d rather I poison you,” Crowley told him.

“Well, it’s not like I’m supposed to want it, am I?” Aziraphale cried, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Crowley sat back, feeling as tired as Aziraphale sounded. Blessed nuns with their blessed broken engine. Of course, if it hadn’t been for them, this would have ruined an otherwise wonderful mood, so Crowley supposed at least there hadn’t been anything to spoil by walking in to find a desperately unhappy angel in his living room.

“Even Heaven can’t be so blessed fucking perverse that they’ve told you you’re not to want the wings--that God herself popped you into being with--well-groomed and in working order,” Crowley said. They could, though, couldn’t they? He could even picture it, some puffed-up dominion reading out a new edict: keep your wings clean, but don’t you dare enjoy it. 

Hell was awful, and his neck was still smarting where someone--Cthugha, maybe--had nailed him with a rubber band before he’d made it under cover, but at least nobody Downstairs was pretending it was anything other than sheer bastardry at work when they gave marching orders like that. They didn’t bother trying to shame anyone caught breaking them, either, just skipped straight to being furious about it. It was more honest. Cleaner. They wouldn’t say it was for anyone’s own good when they shot a grenade at them--they’d just laugh like anything and pull the trigger and just as likely get caught in the explosion themselves.

“That part’s fine,” Aziraphale said, his eyes on the ground. “It’s the, ah. The part where.” He cleared his throat. “The part where I’d prefer you be the one to do it, that’s the problem. I’m rather sure they’d really… not be best pleased, to hear about that part.”

Crowley stared at him, trying not to gape and failing like he’d been born for it. He couldn’t have heard Aziraphale right. It was wishful thinking, fatigue, the nuns’ blessings still scorching his ears. Aziraphale had looked so mortified and distressed at the thought of Crowley grooming his wings, when he’d offered. He’d thrown a comparative fit, when Crowley asked for his own done, this time. It wasn’t--

“You’re always teasing me with yours, and I thought I could bear up under it. You didn’t ask often, really, and you always acted like you had to bribe me into it, and it was… embarrassing, giving into it, but I didn’t think it was hurting anything,” Aziraphale continued, his gaze not lifting from his hands in his lap. “And then you offered to take care of mine, and it was like you were testing the waters. Like you were trying to figure out what else I wanted, so you could tease me with that too.”

It made sense, Crowley thought. If he’d been anything approaching a proper demon, it’s what he would have done. Lay a trap, snare an angel, collect a commendation. Crowley rubbed his face and tried to imagine Aziraphale tolerating a creature so awful that they could follow through with it like he tolerated Crowley. It wasn’t really that far off of what he’d spent the last nigh-on millennium doing, except that the only goal had been to see that sunburst of happiness one more time. What sort of wretch could spend that much time with Aziraphale and come away wanting to ruin him instead of protect him?

“I couldn’t, angel. Not if we had the rest of eternity.” Crowley slumped back into the cushions. He hadn’t meant to be quite that honest--had no idea what Aziraphale would do with information like that--but if it stopped Aziraphale from looking so cracked open and so miserable, it’d be worth it.

“Couldn’t you?” Aziraphale asked, his shoulders drawing up and in. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, and Crowley wanted to bundle him up and soothe him. Too bad there weren’t any magic words this time, no case full of unscathed books to pull from the rubble and hand over. “You know, I’d made up my mind to put my foot down, that first evening. Enough was enough, and you couldn’t just tell me to _get my wings out_ \--” 

Crowley winced at that. Smooth as a country lane after a hard winter, that’d been. He’d have done better, if he’d stopped to think, if he’d known, if he’d even suspected.

“--and you needed to make sure you called before you came over, and… quite a few other things. I’d let myself get a bit lax, you see. I was going to, to get everything back on the straight and narrow.” Aziraphale’s hands found each other again, and he began twisting the ring on his little finger. “But then you didn’t pick up. Or return my call. And then I called again, and you still didn’t pick up. And it occurred to me that things had been going fairly smoothly, I thought, back when the French Revolution finally cooled off, only then one day you just weren’t there anymore.”

“Oh, angel, no.” Crowley could seize on that, at least, around the quicksand of the rest of it. “That was just a little nap.”

“And then there was that ninety years you spent in Hell after you couldn’t keep the Crusaders out of Edessa.” There was a quaver to Aziraphale’s voice on that one; neither of them needed a reminder of who’d been told to help the Crusaders along. So far as Crowley’d been able to tell, their head offices had got it mixed up between them, but it hadn’t mattered to anyone in a position to do anything about it at the time.

“Paperwork, angel.” Paperwork, torn up in front of him every time he finished it, with a fresh copy handed over for him to start it again. Paperwork, and the occasional beating, and if they’d been able to convince anyone else to take his place, he’d never have made it back to Earth, and the angel didn’t need to know any of that. “Even I can’t wriggle off the hook every time.”

“And you wouldn’t necessarily tell me if it was more than just a routine check-in. You always put such a good face on--” Crowley made a noise, and Aziraphale shook his head. “I do hear things, Crowley.”

“Angel.” Crowley sighed. He was one to talk about putting a good face on things, acting like Crowley hadn’t gone into details out of deference to Aziraphale’s feelings instead of a simple desire not to watch Aziraphale fret. Or worse, Aziraphale not caring enough to fret.

“We’ve got all the time in the world, except that we don’t,” Aziraphale said softly. “Not really. Not for… this. And if you were tempting me, well--what of it? If I knew, then it wouldn’t work, and we could just… have this. For ourselves.” He rubbed at the corners of his eyes and gave Crowley a tiny smile. “God knows I’ve wanted worse things than you grooming my wings for me. I only needed to be careful about it, that was all. Manage my expectations and not get too… I’m explaining this badly, aren’t I?”

Aziraphale sniffled and looked up, laughing quietly, and Crowley shook his head.

“You’re explaining it just fine.” And all right, it wasn’t entirely complimentary, but Crowley was a demon--what was going to be? The idea of Aziraphale wanting Crowley to groom his wings badly enough to take a risk over it, of Aziraphale being that rattled by the thought of having to go without his company again--it was like the nuns had queued up again and given him another round of blessings, except this time the burn of it was sweet.

“I didn’t expect you to say no, is all. I didn’t think I’d _have_ to explain, or I’d have...” Aziraphale took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his face. “Bugger it.” He gave Crowley a sheepish look. “I’d have come up with something a little better, I promise.”

“I wouldn’t have, but.” Crowley puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. Aziraphale hadn’t seemed like he’d been saying yes out of anything within spitting distance of wanting it. “Angel, you looked like you were staring down a firing squad when you asked.”

“I didn’t!” Aziraphale’s lips went thin, the picture of offended dignity. 

“I almost offered you a blindfold and a last cigarette.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale glared at him, and thank Satan the angel’d at least forgotten about his crying.

Crowley chuckled and finished his coffee. Poor angel, always afraid to ask for what he wanted. Heaven had a lot to answer for, there. Crowley sighed and put the empty cup down on the table. “I don’t want to do it if it’s not going to make you happy, angel. If you needed it and you couldn’t go Upstairs for it, that’d be one thing, but I wasn’t asking to embarrass you or--”

“I know.” Aziraphale held up his hands, cutting him off. “You made that clear, when you said--when you apologized. And I do want it. I’m sure I do. It’s just not the easiest thing to admit to.”

Crowley studied him, letting his chin rest on his hand. No, it wouldn’t have been. Stiff-necked, stubborn angel--he’d always had a little bit more pride than was good for him. It would’ve been one thing if he’d been created in a higher rank, but as it was, it only made it harder for him to accept what he couldn’t change. But Aziraphale had been trying so hard to swallow it down and be brave and trust that he’d come to no harm with it. Crowley smiled, letting some of that affection bubbling dangerously in his chest slop over into his expression. Aziraphale relaxed when he saw Crowley smile, his own face lighting up and the lines around his eyes smoothing out. His posture lost that tense, bracing look, and he flushed.

After a moment of watching Crowley smile and beaming back, Aziraphale remembered himself. He looked away again, the flush going scarlet, and reached for one of the pasties. Crowley grinned at him as he ate, not even bothering to keep the slyness out of it, and Aziraphale refused to meet his eyes.

“Please tell me you weren’t sitting here all night working yourself into a state about it,” Crowley said, stealing the other cup of coffee.

“No, I.” Aziraphale stopped, swallowed his food, and dabbed at his lips. “I was in a bit of a state, when I realized I couldn’t sense you on the material plane. It seemed like such a long time, for you to have just been checking in with Hell. It’s usually not more than a few hours, but then it’d been days, and I thought.” Aziraphale shrugged and looked away. He’d thought the obvious. “But then you came back, and I realized you just weren’t _home_. I worked a minor divination to see if you were coming back, and…” He nodded to the remaining pie on the table and the cup in Crowley’s hand. “I’d only been here an hour or two when you came in.”

Crowley thought of Aziraphale perched on his couch like that for an hour, marshaling his courage and wanting Crowley to say yes. Maybe he’d even manifested his wings, given them a good stretch, imagined Crowley combing through them and carding out the loose down and kneading at the poor cramped tendons. He banished the blush threatening to rise on his own cheeks, gathered the empty cup and loose wrappers, and stalked to the kitchen. 

He threw everything away, leaned on the counter, and told himself to get it together. He was so close, and Aziraphale wanted everything Crowley wanted to give him, but he’d burned himself just like this not so long ago, hadn’t he? It wouldn’t pay to get stupid and greedy now and send Aziraphale scurrying back to a defensive position. Would Aziraphale even let himself be coaxed out again, if Crowley muffed it this time? Probably not--he’d said too much, been too honest, given Aziraphale’s fears too much ammunition.

Crowley washed his hands carefully, making sure to scrub away every trace of pasty and coffee and engine grease that might have thought to grind itself into his cuticles or hide under his nails. When he came back, Aziraphale had finished his own pie and looked at him expectantly, hope curling his lips into a small, shy smile.

“Are you sure, angel?” Crowley asked gently. The thought of combing out Aziraphale’s feathers while he suffered through it and considered the whole thing a terrible mistake made Crowley feel ill.

Aziraphale nodded.

“All right, then.” He couldn’t keep the crooked smile off his face. If Aziraphale objected to his overly familiar way of asking last time…

Crowley bowed, tucking one arm to his belly and sweeping the other back. “Prithee, good angel--”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” Aziraphale muttered, and Crowley didn’t need to look at him to know his face was going scarlet.

“--an it please thee, wouldst thou allow me the honor of seeing to thy wings?”

“I’m beginning to be sorry I said anything.” 

Crowley looked up, and Aziraphale’s face was an absolutely adorable shade of red.

“Come on, angel,” Crowley laughed, straightening. “I’m a dab hand, but even I can’t do anything about wings I can’t touch.”

Aziraphale looked away, dug his fingers into the cushion on either side of his knees, and curled his shoulders forward. After a breathless moment where Crowley thought he really might change his mind, babble something about having made a mistake, and flee the apartment, Aziraphale’s wings emerged, white and gleaming and beautiful for all that they were a rumpled mess.

“The pride of Eden,” Crowley murmured, circling around him to get a better look at them.

“I _am_ aware of when I’m being mocked, you know,” Aziraphale scolded, lowering his head.

“I would never.” Crowley wanted to run his fingers through the flight feathers and start making them straight and sure, but even he knew better than to dive for someone’s belt buckle when all they’d done was pucker up for a kiss. He let his fingertips drift through the downy feathers at the juncture of wing and shoulder, where the smallest of the scapulars finally disappeared into Aziraphale’s cardigan, and the angel arched and sucked in a breath that had Crowley snatching his hand back as if he’d gotten a good shock off them. “Angel?”

“I didn’t…” Aziraphale exhaled softly, his eyes half-closed. “It’s been a while.”

“It can be a while longer, if you need--”

“No!” Aziraphale turned to face him, expression open and earnest and inarguable.

“All right, all right,” Crowley said, spreading his hands. “It’s okay. Just, let’s get you sitting someplace a bit better for it, shall we?”

He looked around, combing the flat for something suitable, then gave up and snapped his fingers. One of those over-padded, low-backed barrel chairs that had been so popular a few decades back popped into being in the middle of the room. Crowley hated the design of the things on general principle, but he had to admit it would serve the purpose admirably this time. Aziraphale settled into it carefully, then stretched his wings with a relieved sigh.

“Bit of a tight fit for that little shop of yours, aren’t they?” Crowley murmured sympathetically. He dragged the pads of his fingers over the scapulars again, with the grain of the feathers and without any pressure at all, and Aziraphale groaned and leaned into it.

“It’s been a while for everything, really,” Aziraphale admitted, his cheeks coloring all over again. “You must think…”

“You’ve been busy, angel, that’s all.” Crowley petted at the joint, pleased with the way Aziraphale couldn’t help but relax at his touch. It would be easy to overdo it, though. “You’ll tell me, won’t you, if anything’s too much or too sensitive or you don’t like it?”

Aziraphale huffed and twisted around to look at him, his expression reproachful.

“I’m just saying, angel,” Crowley said, slipping his fingers under the feathers and watching Aziraphale’s lips part and cheeks flush, “that we’ve got all the time in the world, for this--we really do. A little bit at a time, or some now and some later, or however it is you want it. There’s no rush.”

Aziraphale turned back around and tried to compose himself. He flexed his wings slowly, then let them relax again, and the slight breeze that eddied around Crowley’s legs had an ethereal warmth to it.

“Just behave yourself,” Aziraphale said.

“Mmm. If I have to.” Crowley grinned, and Aziraphale glanced back at him quickly enough to catch it. “’s a lot more fun when I don’t, though.”

Aziraphale’s retort was forestalled by Crowley running his nails over the warm skin hidden by those soft feathers, the words lost in an undignified noise that made Crowley’s cheeks pink and his mouth go dry.

_Oh, fuck me._

He’d been so caught up in the idea of gettings his hands on those beautiful wings and making Aziraphale purr with it that he’d completely lost sight of what it would mean to be in the blast radius. 

Most times when he found something to draw noises like that from Aziraphale’s lips, he was tucked away in a corner or eavesdropping from the other side of the room, doing his best to remain unobtrusive and unexiled. Aziraphale had honed his skills at not noticing Crowley, over the centuries. He’d gotten good at ignoring the snake in the grass, good at not seeing anything that would require him to act when he’d really rather not. Crowley could find the nearest shadow, fold himself into it, and observe from a safe distance. Eventually Aziraphale would come back to himself, look around and spot Crowley with a flicker of irritation, and tell him to quit skulking, but while it was ongoing, Crowley was free to seek whatever shelter he saw fit.

There was no safe distance here, not if he wanted Aziraphale to keep on with it. Nowhere to be but center stage, with the spotlight of that rapture beating down on him.

Crowley tugged gently at the down between feather and skin, working out the loose bits of fluff, and even with Aziraphale doing his blessed best to swallow every last whimper and still every last quiver, Crowley wasn’t sure either of them would survive a full session.

When everything was in order there, Crowley rested his hands lightly on the back of the chair, and Aziraphale straightened and blinked, taking a deep breath as if he’d just awakened from a trance. He rolled his shoulders and stretched again, then looked back at Crowley, his eyes questioning.

“You’re not done, surely?”

“What shall I work on next, then?” Crowley asked, drawing the tip of one finger along the blade of Aziraphale’s left wing.

Aziraphale bit his lip, his eyes following the path of Crowley’s finger. “Tertiaries, please.”

“A bold choice,” Crowley said, smirking. Aziraphale flushed and worried at his lower lip a bit more. They were useless and fiddly and almost as difficult to get to as the scapulars when one was stuck preening alone, and the moment Crowley sunk his fingers into them, Aziraphale sighed with relief.

“Seems to have paid off, though,” Crowley continued, teasing the feathers back into position. He plucked gently at the shafts to see if anything needed to come out, and Aziraphale couldn’t stifle the soft “Oh!” with the first one that gave. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head. “That one’s been… not quite itching, but _almost_ itching for almost a fortnight, now. It’s been driving me to distraction, whenever I try to settle down and do the accounts or read the paper.”

“Well, good riddance, then,” Crowley chuckled. He worked the offending feather out and handed it to the angel it had been bothering. “The nerve, keeping you from totting up your non-existent sales.”

“Even I can’t keep them from buying _anything_ ,” Aziraphale told him, his voice heavy with regret. He turned the feather over in his hands absently, and Crowley went back to work. “I’ve done well just managing to confine it to the romance novels and modern thrillers. And you know, render unto Caesar. The VAT does need to be remitted in a timely and accurate fashion.”

“Surely Her Majesty can wait just a bit?” Crowley went back to his ministrations. Aziraphale’s feathers were soft against his fingers, and the warmth that seeped into his skin as he worked made him want to bury his face in that beautiful snow-white expanse. It was like watching the sun rise over the open sea as the tension in Aziraphale’s sturdy frame slowly unspooled. He looked almost… not _young_ , Crowley thought, but maybe untroubled. Like he had before anything had sneaked past him into the garden and given him something to worry about.

Crowley finished up with the tertiaries and smoothed everything down with one final stroke of his nails, and Aziraphale shivered, his back arching.

“Coverts next?” Aziraphale asked, lowering his wings slightly so that Crowley’s hands were that much closer.

Crowley took a half-step to the left and swallowed. He’d have to work on one wing at a time now, and no matter what he was doing, he’d have an unobstructed view of the angel’s face. Every sigh, every tic, every wince or grimace or melting smile, right there in front of his eyes.

Satan help him, if he got discorporated now, he’d probably be stuck cleaning up Dagon’s storage rooms. Even the accurate report that he’d been obliterated by an angel wouldn’t be enough to let him dodge that one. 

But still--what a way to go.

Crowley combed his fingers idly through the marginal coverts at the top of the wing, and Aziraphale’s eyes went dark and soft. It was such a far cry from how he must look, when Aziraphale groomed his wings--sly and self-satisfied and impressed with the cleverness that had gotten an angel to look after him for a half-hour or so. It felt so blessed good, but he’d always been so careful not to impose too much that Aziraphale was only just soothing him and fussing over him. The angel was never really fixing anything that _needed_ fixing.

Crowley had no doubt that what he was doing now felt good--whenever he got stuck in Hell too long, there was always at least one or two demons seizing the day and shoving their wings into his hands and growling at him to get on with it, and he knew better than to think anyone would bother with the risk if he wasn’t doing a better job than they could themselves. But there was something else, something that heightened the whole thing when it was accompanied by the sort of genuine relief coloring Aziraphale’s features now. It felt good, but it was removing a source of discomfort, too.

“Might’ve let me do this for you months ago, angel,” Crowley murmured, combing his fingers through the secondary coverts. Aziraphale stretched his wings a little, giving Crowley better access, and Crowley couldn’t resist a gentle squeeze of the flesh beneath the feather.

“ _Oh._ ” Aziraphale groaned, loud and indecorous and thrillingly sensual, and Crowley’s breath caught in his throat. He did it again, rolling his fingertips this time, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and sagged against the low back of his chair, cheeks going red and mouth falling open.

“Too much?” Crowley asked softly, ready to pry his hands off those glorious wings if Aziraphale so much as batted an eyelash. As heady as it was to see him like this, so perfectly undone and lost in it, the few times Crowley had seen Aziraphale really let himself slip like this, it had taken the angel weeks afterward to stop fearing some terrible consequence to come from the lapse.

“Don’t you dare stop now,” Aziraphale breathed, stretching his wing farther. “Please, Crowley, I didn’t realize…” He looked around the room, his eyes suddenly pleading. “Is there somewhere I could--” He licked his lips, his flush darkening. “--lie down while you do that? It’s so hard to relax and keep them up at the same time, and they’re so sore and stiff, Crowley, I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until you…”

“Sure thing, angel,” Crowley said, and he could kick himself for sounding as poleaxed as he felt. “Just--”

_Just crawl right into my bed. Fancy getting your kit off first, or a stiff drink?_

And oh, Satan, Aziraphale was going to see his idiotic fucking shag-pit. He’d meant to update the decor in the bedroom; he’d been meaning to get around to it for years now. It had been one thing to change out the color scheme, once burnt this and acid that had gone out of style, one thing to switch out the soft, soothing glow of the lava lamps for halogen Scandinavian monstrosities that gave him a steel-plated excuse for wearing sunglasses indoors, but the conversation pit had been… well, it had been too much fucking fun, hadn’t it? Stuff it brimful with pillows and blankets, let his corporation snap back into shape as the oversized reptile at the core of him, and just curl up or lounge however was comfortable that particular moment.

Crowley cast about the living room, looking for anything that might keep the angel out of his bedroom. He could miracle the sofa into a daybed, or cover the coffee table with cushions, or…

Or he could stand there gawping like a yokel while Aziraphale pushed himself out of the chair and made his way straight for the bedroom. Of course--Aziraphale had had the run of the place for a good hour before Crowley’d even made it back into the city. The first thing the angel had probably done was case the joint, though he’d doubtless have thought of what he was doing in much less sinister terms. Anything Crowley had to be embarrassed or ashamed of, Aziraphale had been able to take stock of it at a leisurely pace, completely unsupervised and over a cup of tea and a pasty. Plenty of time to really contemplate it, examine it from all the angles, adjust the lighting and think about the implications of it. He’d listened to the messages on the ansaphone, for fuck’s sake.

Crowley rubbed his face, then stopped and blessed himself. His hands were ripe with the rich smell of Aziraphale’s wings, and there was no escaping it, was there? That smell would be pressed into his bed, settling like a perfume over his blankets and his pillows.

He followed in Aziraphale’s wake, drifting into his own bedroom like a sleepwalker, and Aziraphale turned to face him, eyes hopeful.

“Yeah, sure, I mean…” Crowley gestured vaguely toward the bed. There was nothing else for it, no shooing him back out now. It would be wonderfully horrible, horribly wonderful, seeing Aziraphale stretched out on his bed. If he had to have one image burned into his retinas for the rest of eternity, he could do infinitely worse than the brilliant white of Aziraphale’s wings stretched against the ink black of his sheets.

Aziraphale sat on the edge of the-- _ridiculous, palatially oversized, what had he been thinking when he’d bought it?_ \--bed and took off his shoes, then stretched out on his soft belly. He tucked one crooked arm under his cheek as a pillow and ran the other hand over the covers.

“I didn’t know they made blankets this soft,” Aziraphale murmured, letting his wings rest on the mattress. Crowley wondered if he really could discorporate from the sight, spontaneously combust from the slow stroke of Aziraphale’s fingers over combed cotton.

“Well, you don’t sleep,” Crowley pointed out, because it was either that or choke on his own thoughts. “Not something you’d have cause to look into.”

Aziraphale hummed instead of answering, then lifted the wing closest to the edge, a silent invitation for Crowley to resume his preening. Crowley’d had some idea of bending and going through everything with the wing off the bed, but Aziraphale clearly intended him to sit and work with it in his lap, and Crowley thought of what that angelic warmth might feel like, spreading through his legs and creeping up his hips.

And, well, that was fine. He hadn’t been using those brain cells for anything anyway, had he?

Crowley sat down, tucking his ankle behind his knee as he twisted forward, and drew Aziraphale’s wing into his lap. He slid trembling fingers under the feathers, this time going straight for tendon and muscle. Aziraphale sighed, a long, low sound caught halfway between pleasure and pain, and the wing gradually slackened in Crowley’s hands. Aziraphale’s expression smoothed into one of utter contentment, the little lines of habitual worry and fretting Crowley had grudgingly gotten used to since the invention of the H-bomb disappearing along with the tension in his wing.

“I’ve gotten out of the habit of manifesting them,” Aziraphale said, a few minutes after Crowley thought the angel might be past the point of stringing together a coherent sentence. “It’s only when it becomes uncomfortable that I really think about them at all, these days. Not much call for a full manifestation and vision in this day and age, and Gabriel usually handles them personally when the odd situation does crop up.”

Crowley clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Really, angel. You must take better care of yourself, my dear.”

Aziraphale clawed his way far enough out of the bliss he’d been floating in to give Crowley a dirty look, then closed his eyes again.

“It isn’t fair, throwing my concern for you back in my face,” he sniffed. “This is a matter of comfort, not discorporation.”

“Oh, rubbish--”

“I had to call a hotline meant for cooks dealing with frozen geese to get instructions for properly defrosting you,” Aziraphale said firmly. “I spent three days with you wallowing in the bathtub like a particularly sulky Christmas carp, trying to get you back up to the right temperature without sending you into shock. You ruined my favorite shoes with all the splashing you got up to slithering out of the tub, and then you slithered right back in again because the floor was cold.”

The floor had been cold, and Crowley had belatedly realized that his clothes were still downstairs, which had been where he’d given up on rational thought and turned into a serpent and tried to curl up on the rug in front of the hearth. Aziraphale hadn’t thought to bring them up with him when he’d discovered Crowley sprawled in front of the fire, cold-stunned and shivering and deeply regretting trying to use a motorcycle in the middle of winter. Not that Aziraphale had ever seemed especially interested in Crowley’s nakedness, but it had already been one of the most dignity-lacerating episodes in Crowley’s long and storied life, and he hadn’t been willing to part with any remaining shreds of it.

“They were ancient and ready for the charwoman anyway. And besides, I miracled them right again,” Crowley grumbled. He flexed his fingers and rotated his hands. “Other side or feathers first?”

Aziraphale stretched his wings slowly and carefully, like a robin warming up for the first song of the morning. “Mmm. Other side, please. It’s made such a difference, Crowley--words really can’t properly express it.”

“Best not to try then, hmm?” Crowley asked, lifting Aziraphale’s wing carefully and sliding out from under it. He circled to the other side of the bed, then found himself having to kick off his shoes and slide across half a mile of empty bed to get himself properly under the unattended wing. He folded his legs into a half-lotus, then pulled Aziraphale’s wing into his lap.

The long sigh this time was decidedly more pleasure than pain, and Crowley found himself wondering what sort of noises Aziraphale would make if he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the downy nape of his neck. His lovely, negligent angel. The wing stretched farther and went loose and pliant as he worked, and Aziraphale moved his other arm under his head and turned his face toward Crowley. His eyes were still closed, and Crowley wondered if it was only so that Crowley could see the effect he was having on the angel.

Radiant--that’s what he’d thought Aziraphale would be, and he hadn’t been wrong. It was like staring into the sun, looking at that tranquil face, crowned as it was with silver curls and grace-drenched pleasure. What a marvelous creature had fallen into his clutches--practically a gift from the Almighty Herself.

Crowley combed his nails through Aziraphale’s coverts, straightening what he’d ruffled in kneading at the cramped muscle, and Aziraphale protested wordlessly when he stopped.

“Coverts, still?” Crowley asked. He rested a hand lightly between Aziraphale’s shoulder blades, and Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered open. The pupils were wide and dark, his eyes the color of the sky at full dusk.

“Push down a bit, right there?” he asked softly. Crowley frowned but did as Aziraphale had asked. There was an odd shift in the spine under the heel of his palm, and Aziraphale’s groan was one of unadulterated satisfaction. “Oh, my word.”

“Was that, ah, good?” Crowley asked, mildly alarmed.

“Oh, _yes_.” Aziraphale sighed, contented, and let his wing flop more determinedly across Crowley’s lap. “I’d thought that was all on account of keeping my wings tucked away, but Lord, it feels so much better now.” He tilted his head a little farther and beamed at Crowley. “But yes, please--coverts, still.”

Crowley dragged his fingers through the feathers in question more determinedly, and Aziraphale’s lids drooped. “I’m beginning to think I might have created a monster.”

“Don’t tease,” Aziraphale said, as firmly as he could around the breathy sigh Crowley’s grooming provoked. “And besides, you said it yourself--I took care of yours a half-dozen times without any sort of reciprocation.”

“You only had to ask, angel,” Crowley told him gently, working a loose feather free of its mooring.

“It’s not as simple or as easy as that.” Aziraphale’s voice was so low Crowley had to strain to hear his words. “You know it isn’t.”

“It is,” Crowley told him, stroking at the secondary coverts. “I promise you, it is. When have I ever held you needing anything against you?”

He hadn’t; he _knew_ he hadn’t. If he had, Aziraphale would never have come back the next time, would have happily chucked everything they’d shared on a midden pile rather than risk making himself vulnerable again. If Crowley’s better judgment ever slipped, he always had that as a check--the angel was about as likely to forgive him as God was.

“It would be easier if you did, sometimes,” Aziraphale whispered. He closed his eyes and turned his face away, and he gasped and shivered when Crowley ran his fingers through that blond hair. “You make it too easy to get used to. I start thinking the wildest things and pretending it could just go on like this. It’s like being in an opium haze I can’t shake, or a dream I can’t wake up from.”

“Do you want me to stop?” Crowley asked. _Say no, please say no._

“No. I never want you to stop.” Aziraphale pressed his wing harder into Crowley’s hand at the same time he reached up and curled his hand over the fingers in his hair, guiding Crowley into a repetition of the gesture. “That’s rather the problem, isn’t it?”

“Poor thing,” Crowley sighed. He tugged his hand out of Aziraphale’s grasp and returned to grooming his wing. “You know what we should do, later?”

“The Ritz?” Aziraphale asked.

“Mmm. A bottle of champagne.” Crowley moved on to the secondary coverts. “That strawberry trifle.”

“You see? You spoil me so awfully.”

“Hardly my fault everyone else’s brains fell out of their heads and they can’t see you have it coming, is it?” Crowley turned his face away at that, wishing he’d bitten his tongue instead. 

What wouldn’t the angel do with that divulgence, when night fell and panic set in and he went scrambling back behind that holier-than-thou bulwark of what an angel was supposed to be and want and do? 

Aziraphale spoke of it as a dream he couldn’t wake from, but he did--he always did. And the waking was a bad one, a thrashing tumble out of a nightmare that led to doors slammed in Crowley’s face and calls unreturned and every handy reminder of what he had been and was no longer shoved in his face to make him stop trying. Crowley wished there was a way to make Aziraphale understand that he’d never stop trying, couldn’t ever stop trying; if he had any shelter from the storms of existence, it was under Aziraphale’s wing. But then, that might bring its own risks, if Aziraphale ever really understood.

“You mustn’t say things like that,” Aziraphale told him, his voice quiet and vulnerable as a rabbit’s belly.

Crowley swallowed. He really shouldn’t, should he? Aziraphale was already taking a risk just in associating with him, and every unnecessary meeting, every little gift, every overly-familiar gesture was compounding it. If he couldn’t bring himself to view any meeting with Aziraphale as unnecessary, he could at least keep his mouth shut about how pretty the angel’s wings were or how richly he deserved all the gentle treatment Crowley longed to shower him with. It was greedy, wanting more when he already had Aziraphale draped across his bed and Aziraphale’s wings draped across his lap. It was gluttonous, wanting to wallow in that ethereal scent for the rest of eternity. There’d be pleasure in it, certainly, but even demons weren’t spared the subsequent hangover when they indulged.

The only sounds in the room were the rustle of Crowley’s fingers moving through Aziraphale’s feathers and the faint sounds of satisfaction that Aziraphale couldn’t quite keep himself from making in response to the preening. Crowley wondered what it would be like to lie down next to him, to cover himself with that wing and curl up against Aziraphale’s side and sleep as if neither of them had a care in the world. He ached with the thought.

He’d never get up again, probably. Not unless Aziraphale made him.

Crowley stretched his fingers and shook out his hands, then rested them lightly on Aziraphale’s secondaries. “Keep going?”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale flexed his wing, spreading the feathers. “Unless you need a rest?”

“Nah. Just want to make sure I’m not sending you into a coma.” Crowley tugged gently on the shafts, then stopped when Aziraphale grunted. “Sore?”

“Just the one, but.” Aziraphale grimaced and shook his wing out. “Surprisingly so.”

Crowley spread the feathers around it and gently pulled the skin taut, checking the calamus for damage and the follicle for inflammation. The skin and quill were a bit dry, but nothing seemed amiss otherwise. Crowley snapped his fingers, and the small jar of almond oil he kept in the vanity appeared in his hand. He dabbed his fingertips in it and began slowly, carefully working the oil into the skin at the base of the offending feather. Aziraphale was obviously and deliberately holding still during the ordeal, and Crowley gave him a sympathetic pout.

“Just close your eyes and think of the champagne and strawberry trifle, angel,” he said. They both let out a sigh of relief as Crowley finished up with the spot. He checked the other feathers, not relaxing until there were no further sore plumes. He straightened them and ran his fingers through the barbs, getting everything well and settled again. “Primaries or other side?”

“Might as well get the primaries--no sense you darting back and forth like a weasel after a coney.”

“By which I’m sure you mean the world’s most elegant, well-dressed, and self-possessed weasel,” Crowley scoffed. 

He brushed his hand over the primaries, and Aziraphale shivered against him. 

“Are you sure, angel?” he asked, more quietly. “It can wait until tomorrow, if you’d rather.”

“ _Please_ ,” Aziraphale said firmly, his brow furrowing.

Crowley stroked the feathers as gently as he could, keeping his own touch light as the brush of another feather. The flight feathers were sensitive in a way that healthy coverts tended not to be, and the primaries more so than the secondaries. Aziraphale’s face went curiously blank as Crowley caressed them. Crowley stroked along the rachis, his nails playing along the barbs until everything was sorted out and in good working order.

When Crowley was done, Aziraphale let the wing flop heavily across Crowley’s lap, and he seemed to almost deflate against the mattress.

“Would you…” Aziraphale sighed softly. “That spot on my back, would you just rest your hand there for a minute?”

Crowley leaned to the side and traced the angel’s spine up to the place right between the wings, then pressed his palm gently against the vertebrae. Aziraphale went limp under his hand with a quiet huff, and Crowley distracted himself from the fetching pink of Aziraphale’s cheeks by stroking the alulas into some semblance of order.

“Would it be all right if we just stayed like this for a bit?” Aziraphale asked, his voice barely more than a sleep-fogged whisper.

“As long as you like, angel,” Crowley told him. The rest of the decade, if Aziraphale wanted. Crowley slipped the fingers of his free hand into the downy scapulars of the wing in his lap, and he did his best to commit every soft feather and every happy sigh and every peaceful, sleepy breath to memory.

The hours slipped past, time running through his fingers like an angel’s feathers, and Aziraphale dozed lightly next to him, the angel’s back rising and falling steadily under his hand. Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so perfectly warm in the wintertime; even the final day he’d spent in Aziraphale’s bathtub getting sous-vided out of hypothermia had been marred by the knowledge of what was waiting for him the moment he left the water.

_Please, please, don’t let him regret this when he wakes._

Crowley wondered if She might listen, just this once, if him praying on Her faithful servant’s behalf might finally make the request worthy of consideration. Crowley wasn’t fool enough to hope that Aziraphale might look on him and find him lovely, or even that Aziraphale would smile upon him more often than he did, but it was hardly beyond reason to hope he might open those beautiful blue eyes of his and not recoil at his lapse. It would be enough if Aziraphale asked him to finish with the other wing, if Aziraphale thanked him and then never spoke of it again, if it became something Crowley could offer in a few years, casually and in a moment when Aziraphale was in the mood to say yes.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley started, not realizing how lost he’d gotten in the thought of what Aziraphale’s wings would look like when he was finished with them, and looked down at Aziraphale’s face.

“You’d have me sell myself so cheaply?” Crowley asked, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re usually giving them away for free to anyone who’ll listen.” Aziraphale smiled mischievously at Crowley’s offended grunt.

“I was just thinking,” Crowley said, after he finished pretending to be affronted, “that you have the most glorious wings I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing unfurled.”

Aziraphale blushed and looked away, and Crowley smirked to see his petty act of revenge succeed so well.

“In fact,” Crowley continued, leaning in close and lowering his voice, “if I had a heart, it would break in two at how beautiful they are.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale laughed, squirming under his hand as if Crowley was tickling him.

“Lovely as starlight, bright as the first buds of spring, light as the steam of laughter on a cold winter’s morning--”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, earnest in his laughter, and Crowley couldn’t resist one last thing before the angel wouldn’t let him pretend to mock anymore.

“If I was only given hands that I might touch them, I would count it a gift well and wisely bestowed,” Crowley whispered, and he felt the sharp lift of Aziraphale’s ribcage even if he couldn’t hear the gasp.

“You mustn’t,” Aziraphale said, his voice no louder than Crowley’s had been.

“Flattery, angel,” Crowley pointed out, stroking his hand down Aziraphale’s spine. “Can’t help a little bit of it, can I? Down to my basic nature and all that.”

“You can’t… bait me like that,” Aziraphale murmured, pressing his wing up into Crowley’s hand. Crowley dug his fingers into the down, and Aziraphale closed his eyes. “I do have a heart, and you’ll break it in two with that.”

“Shall I finish preening your other wing, to make up for my cruelty?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale sighed and opened his eyes again, raising his head to glance back at Crowley.

“Yes, but--but you’ll do this again,” Aziraphale rolled his shoulder blades, “won’t you, if I need you to?”

“Of course, angel.” Crowley wasn’t surprised that he needed a bit of soothing after the intensity of the preening. The tenderness of the angel’s flesh under his fingers just from the kneading and stretching might have had Crowley calling it quits after that, if he was sure Aziraphale would give him a few more shots to finish everything up without sounding a decade-long retreat from the intimacy of it. “Hardly going to leave you in the lurch when I still owe you a good five grooming sessions.”

“All right, then.” Aziraphale lifted his wing enough to Crowley to wriggle out from under it.

He stretched his legs and twisted his spine a few times, working all the cricks and catches out before getting to his feet and circling the bed. He couldn’t regret the size of it now, not with Aziraphale stretched across it so comfortably. 

The angel in repose, and oh, what he wouldn’t give to have this for the rest of eternity. It would have been worth falling, if he’d done it for this. He’d have taken the dive and not regretted it for a heartbeat, if he’d been cast out over this.

Crowley slipped his hands under Aziraphale’s wing, lifted it gently, and slotted himself beneath it. He couldn’t help himself and leaned close, practically purring in Aziraphale’s ear. “Warm as a clear June day, and infinitely sweeter.”

Aziraphale flicked his wing out of Crowley’s grasp and glared at him, cheeks scarlet. “You’re about to find yourself wrapped in them, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed and couldn’t meet the angel’s gaze, at that. 

“Perish the thought,” he finally muttered, his own face red. He couldn’t help it; he’d wrung himself out in wringing out Aziraphale.

Aziraphale relented after a moment, laying his wing across Crowley’s thighs again, and Crowley brushed his fingers over the secondaries. He plucked at the quills, even more gentle this time after what had happened with the others, and he was glad of it when Aziraphale complained of two this time. Crowley examined them and shrugged.

“I think it’s just a bit of dryness, but it’s the same feather as the other side and its neighbor,” he said, rubbing almond oil into the skin. “Might be from keeping ‘em squashed up like you do. You should try to give them a good stretch and a few good, hard beats more often, see if that helps.”

“There’s not really space for it in the shop,” Aziraphale said, raising an eyebrow. “I’d need some great empty cavern of a lair, with hardly any furniture because someone apparently objects to being comfortable.”

“Does this someone also own a bed you practically fell in love with the moment you touched it?” Crowley asked archly.

Aziraphale scoffed and refused to acknowledge the question, and Crowley chuckled.

“It would be more convenient for me to slick the quills if you dropped by rather than making me come all the way to Soho,” he offered.

“Well, if you insist.”

Crowley stroked his fingers lightly through Aziraphale’s primaries, and the angel whimpered. He panted for a moment, after Crowley stopped, and he shoved his face into the crook of his elbow.

“Angel?” Crowley prompted.

Aziraphale shook his head, and Crowley pressed his hand between the angel’s wings and waited.

“It just feels so damn good,” Aziraphale said after the several minutes it took him to catch his breath. “But at the same time it’s so _much_. It’s like… do you remember, creating the heavens--that bit of the song right before things coalesced into being? When it was all coursing through you and building and focusing, and you felt like you might burst with it?”

“Never got to, but I take your meaning,” Crowley said gently, stroking his coverts. “Keep going?”

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley could feel Aziraphale deliberately relax his frame against him. Crowley started again, this time going even slower, and even lighter, over the feathers. They didn’t need much, at least--the primaries were the easiest to reach, if there was no one handy to help--and Crowley was finished before Aziraphale had to ask him to stop again.

Aziraphale sighed, and it sounded like it was coming from the very bottom of his being. Crowley let his hand rest lightly between Aziraphale’s wings, and Aziraphale melted with it, his face going as still as if some sweet and sudden sleep had overtaken him.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, after enough time had passed that Crowley would have thought he really had fallen asleep if not for the periodic twitch of the wing in his lap.

“Mmm?” He was feeling dazed and sleep-heavy with it himself, the warmth of the wing and the comfort of Aziraphale next to him and the homey smell of Aziraphale’s feathers all combining into a perfect sort of soporific.

“Why were you so long, this time? Downstairs, I mean?” he asked. “You aren’t in trouble, are you?”

“No more so than usual, angel.” He ran his nails through the tertiaries, and Aziraphale flexed his wing to let the fingers burrow deeper into the feathers. “Wasn’t really down so long, though--it was two trips. You just checked at the wrong times, I think.”

“Two--!” Aziraphale clicked his tongue and glanced up at Crowley from the comfortable-looking pillow of his forearm. “What were you thinking?”

“Shouldn’t have to report back for a while, is what I was thinking.” Crowley rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. He yawned after a moment, and what wouldn’t he give to be able to stretch out alongside the angel.

“You’ll return those, those _rocket launchers_ , won’t you?”

“Sure thing, angel. I kept the receipt, and it’s within thirty days of purchase, so it shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Aziraphale gave him the shirtiest look the angel was currently capable of, and Crowley grinned. He stroked along the rachis of each tertiary individually, petting as much as preening, and Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered almost closed.

“That solicitor…”

“Shh, angel,” Crowley sighed, pressing a little harder on his back. Aziraphale made a moue, and Crowley let the fondness welling in his heart show in his face, just a bit. “That one’s a surprise.”

“It’s just that she’s an executor.”

Crowley barely tamped down the smirk that wanted to curl his lips. Aziraphale had done a bit more prying than just listening to the messages themselves, then--he’d put those angelic senses to work and read between the lines, at the very least.

“I’m not making up a will,” Crowley promised. “Though I probably should, one of these days, just so nothing goes derelict if I get stuck Downstairs a bit too long. You’d look after everything for me, wouldn’t you?”

“It would be easier if you’d just stay out of trouble, wouldn’t it?” Aziraphale countered.

“Easier said than done, angel.” Crowley did smirk, at that. “Trouble’s my middle name.”

“Your middle name is just a J.” Aziraphale squirmed a bit, his chest heaving under Crowley’s hand, and then Crowley just about choked on his tongue when Aziraphale’s fingers wrapped around his knee under that veil of a wing. “Please, Crowley. It’s so awfully lonely here when you’re gone.”

“Look, I know. I know it is.” Bless him, he was babbling. He could lie through his teeth without even stammering when it was a Prince demanding answers, but Aziraphale just had to give him one little look and one little squeeze, and off they went. It didn’t help that it was one thing to know that Aziraphale missed him when he was gone, in spite of the angel going cross and pretending not to have noticed or scolding him over it, and a very different thing to hear Aziraphale say it out loud, without any sort of pretense or play-acting. “I do my best, angel. I do. It’s just like threading a bloody needle sometimes, and, well, you know how it is. Not like Heaven hasn’t recalled you on a whim a few times, and bless me, but those were some real nail-biters.”

“Were they?” Aziraphale asked, brightening. Crowley paused, realizing his mistake. But no, not entirely a mistake--Aziraphale couldn’t hold it against him later, could he? Not with the face he was making now. Though Aziraphale was nothing if not a past master of ignoring his own part in things, of forgetting how pleased he’d been at the time or how token a protest he’d registered. “I thought I remembered you saying you hadn’t noticed.”

“I… might have exaggerated a bit. You know, as a joke.”

Aziraphale tilted his head, his expression going a tad ashamed. “You’re sure it wasn’t because you were put out with me?”

Crowley licked his lips. “Might’ve been because I didn’t think you’d take it well, if I didn’t.”

It had been so routine, in the old days. Any betrayal of the fact that Crowley paid attention to him, kept tabs on him, wanted to hang around him, and Aziraphale would launch into a full-throated rebuke. Crowley had only wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t be dead the next time he came through town, had only wanted to share a drink with someone who wouldn’t stick a knife in his back as soon as look at him, and the attention had made Aziraphale so dreadfully, unbelievably nervous. It had been ages before Crowley had even gotten him to sit down at a table with him and eat, and that had taken the aftermath of the Flood.

Aziraphale’s expression turned more than a little ashamed. “I suppose you have a point, there. You might even have been right.”

“Things were different, then,” Crowley soothed, rubbing the angel’s back.

“Things weren’t any different than they are now,” Aziraphale said. “We were different. Or at least I was.” He sagged against the mattress, wing going heavy across Crowley’s thighs. “So much time wasted…”

“Good thing we’ve got oodles of it,” Crowley reminded him.

Aziraphale huffed. “I was afraid of you. You know that? I thought, you had to know. You had to know, and you were determined to use it against me, and then I’d be in so much trouble, when they found out how I’d gotten discorporated, or why I’d failed on my mission.”

“Well, I mean, you weren’t _entirely_ wrong,” Crowley managed. Sanctimonious pricks, and it wasn’t like they didn’t know how an angel would fare, kicked out of Heaven and with no one around to talk to. “It was obvious, just looking at you.” Like it had probably been blessed fucking obvious, just looking at Crowley in Rome when Aziraphale had finally cracked and taken pity on him. “Only I figured it meant we could make it easier on each other instead of harder.”

The fingers on Crowley’s knee tightened, and Aziraphale gave him a sad look. “After a while I realized you weren’t dangerous, and then I started to let my guard down. And then I understood that that was where the real danger came from--liking you.”

Crowley felt that curious pressure in his chest again, like his lungs were being squished out of shape, and he grunted.

“I liked you, but liking you didn’t change anything, did it?” Aziraphale continued. “I still might have to discorporate you, or you might have to discorporate me--”

“I _wouldn’t_ \--” And oh, why not just hand the angel a poisoned dagger to use on him next time it looked like it might be a possibility? Crowley could kick himself.

“All right, you wouldn’t,” Aziraphale snapped. “And then what? You’d disobey orders for me, and I’d lose you all the same.” His grip on Crowley’s knee tightened until it was almost painful, then relaxed as soon as Aziraphale remembered himself. “It… I know they’re not especially fond of me, Upstairs. But it doesn’t matter as much as it might, does it? We’re all angels. We’re stuck with each other whether we like it or not. But you? Crowley, I can’t--”

“I’m not going anywhere, angel,” Crowley said, sliding his hand up to those pale curls. Aziraphale let him, but he smiled like his heart might break.

“You make all sorts of promises, and we both know you can’t keep them. It drives me mad, sometimes, how much you promise me, and never with any idea of whether or not you can actually do it. You promise me, and I need you so much I want to believe you, but I know I can’t.” Aziraphale sighed. “I can’t let go, and I can’t keep you. You’re the one thing in all of Creation I could really hurt myself with, and I didn’t understand what I was doing in liking you until it was too late to undo it.”

“Would you? If you could?” Crowley asked. 

He’d never looked at it that way before, had he? He’d had nothing to lose in pursuing Aziraphale’s grudging tolerance except for the odd corporation and a negligible general respect in Hell for his abilities as a tempter. It hadn’t occurred to him that Aziraphale might have concerns beyond the possibility of losing his grace or being reprimanded if Heaven suspected he was getting chummy with people he ought to be smiting instead. 

That Aziraphale saw their friendship as something valuable enough to fight for or fret over when it wasn’t under immediate threat was enough of a confession to surprise Crowley at it being made; he wasn’t sure what to do with the idea that Aziraphale saw it as something unique in the angel’s entire existence.

Aziraphale curled his wing slightly, hugging it close to Crowley’s other knee and pressing down across his legs. 

“No.” He was firm, sure of himself, and there was a glint in his eye when he said it. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“I suppose we’re stuck with each other, then.” Crowley carded his finger through Aziraphale’s curls, and the angel blushed.

“It’s just…” Aziraphale’s lips pursed. “We have to be _careful_ , Crowley. Heaven’s mostly given up on trying to make anything of me, I think, but one wrong move, and Hell wouldn’t blink at destroying you.”

“So, in case we lose this,” Crowley waved his hand at the two of them and the room, “we have to make dead certain we never enjoy it too much?”

Aziraphale grimaced. 

“That’s not what I’m saying, but I suppose it’s not so very far off.” He looked away, his mouth setting into a firm line. “I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you, not over something as ridiculous as a lunch date or a stroll through the park or a glass of champagne and a slice of strawberry trifle.”

He went to push himself up, then blinked and laid back down.

“Angel?”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale exhaled indelicately and looked embarrassed. “I’m fine. I just suddenly realized how much I didn’t want to move, that’s all.”

“I’ll get you a cup of tea,” Crowley assured him. A cup of tea, and a heating pad, and some extra blankets. He’d never had anything like this happen to him before, but then it wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the shape Aziraphale’s wings had been in. He just needed a bit of a rest, some time for all those nerves to settle back down and all that energy to ground itself again. Crowley started to get up, and Aziraphale’s wing and hand both tightened.

“Or you could stay here?” Aziraphale suggested. “Maybe you could even lie down instead of looming there like you’re at a wake.”

Crowley’s heart decided to get in on the act his lungs were halfway through, and he felt like he had jelly in his veins instead of blood. 

_We have to be careful, we can’t let ourselves have too much,_ said the angel. 

_Lie down with me,_ said the angel.

“I am not _looming_.”

“You are. It makes me feel like I have my own personal gargoyle, with you hunched over me like that.” Aziraphale gingerly lifted his wing and furled it enough that Crowley could lie down beside him. “Come on, then.”

Crowley twisted himself around, drawing one leg up onto the bed and straightening the other, and then lowered himself onto his side. Oh, what a stroke of brilliance it had been, getting a bed this size. Aziraphale let his wing rest across Crowley’s chest, the edge of it curling just enough that it felt deliberate.

“If I went to sleep, you’d stay, wouldn’t you?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes already drooping. “I wouldn’t wake up alone?”

“As long as you need, angel.”

“Thank you, Crowley.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale’s features smooth over, and he looked so much like the angel Crowley had slipped past to go pick an apple for the world’s first woman that Crowley couldn’t help but smile with it. He reached out and traced the line of Aziraphale’s jaw, his fingers as light as they’d been over Aziraphale’s primaries. The angel could preach caution all he wanted, but Crowley hadn’t spent the last millennium watching him not only thaw but blossom with regular care to turn away now.

“You deserve so much more than the crumbs you’ve been asked to give thanks for,” Crowley murmured, tucking a stray curl behind Aziraphale’s ear.

The angel deserved more than what Crowley could give him, too, but there wasn’t much Crowley could do about that except try harder.

A soft hand reached out and clasped his, drawing it from Aziraphale’s hair to Aziraphale’s breast.

“Just stay with me, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, curling closer against him.

Crowley swallowed hard at that. He swallowed hard, and bit his lip, and took a deep breath. _Too much, too fast, don’t send him into a frenzy of denial the moment he wakes up--_

Crowley carefully manifested his own wings, then curled one tenderly over Aziraphale’s where it draped across Crowley’s ribs. The angel sighed but didn’t wake, and his hand tightened on Crowley’s, and the last little bit of tension and discomfort bled out of him.

Radiant, Crowley thought. If this was the last thing he ever saw, it would be a vision well worth the seeing.

Radiant, and the angel wasn’t entirely wrong about this being something they had to protect, about the risks they ran.

“I’m buying us a cottage, angel,” he whispered, keeping his voice low enough not to wake Aziraphale. “It’s already full of books, left by someone who loved them while he lived. I’m going to plant the garden with everything I can think of that’ll make you smile and won’t try to choke each other out of the beds. I’m going to run down all those ridiculous paintings you used to inspire, back in the Regency days, and they’re going on the walls if I have to swipe ‘em out of a museum to get ‘em, and you’re going to love them as much now as you did when you encouraged the artists to finish them. And someday, when all this is over, we’re going to spend summers there eating oranges and lounging on the patio and having picnics, and you’ll look like this all the time because you’ll know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re loved better than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

Radiant, Crowley thought, and the angel wasn’t entirely wrong about him promising things when he had no way of knowing if he could keep them. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand gently, then dipped his head and kissed Aziraphale’s knuckles. He’d have laughed, if someone had told him yesterday that he’d have the angel in his bed before the end of the week. He’d have laughed, and hoped, and thought himself stupid for hoping. And yet, here they were.

_I thought you were tempting me._

_I’ve been such a fool._

Clever, clever angel, and he’d gotten here all by himself, and Crowley’d barely had to do anything because Aziraphale wanted to be with him. They’d been outrunning Heaven and Hell for a thousand years, and Aziraphale wanted to be with him, and Aziraphale needed him, and Aziraphale wouldn’t change it if he could. If that was all possible, then surely anything was possible.

Crowley studied Aziraphale’s soft, happy face, and that brilliant wing sprawled out across his black comforter, and the way Aziraphale fit against him so perfectly. God might be done with Crowley, but surely She couldn’t look down on Aziraphale and see how well he was loved and how lovely he was when he was properly cared for and not want to see it continue.

_You made him for this, and don’t pretend You didn’t. This is how it’s supposed to be for him. Even You can’t fault me for loving him--_

Crowley blinked at that admission, but there was no getting around it, was there? Not to God, not to himself--there was no hiding from his own heart.

Aziraphale snuggled closer, and Crowley let his wing tighten around them, his feathers rustling over the angel’s. _I love you._ He couldn’t say it, not yet, maybe not ever. Aziraphale could say he needed Crowley; Crowley knew he wasn’t ready to hear that Crowley needed him in turn. But it was true, and it had been true for longer than Crowley would have let himself think it. 

It was true, and he could only trust in it and have faith that they’d find a way into that perfect future he wanted to build for them together.

“Some day, angel,” he whispered again, kissing Aziraphale’s warm, soft hand, “when this is all over.”


End file.
